Holocaust Memorial Day

A blog post on the Holocaust is as complicated as it sounds. There are many avenues that can be taken and numerous approaches to discuss. So many questions are raised: How did the Nazis get away with it? How were the Red Cross fed a lie? Why did the Nazis do it? How did they convince people that their regime was one to follow? Each one of these questions would take their own in-depth blog post to cover. Not only this but the subject itself is one of distress and horror that automatically creates an atmosphere of discomfort – desperation is filling me hoping that I do not offend anyone. Therefore, I have chosen a topic that does not demand answers, or a huge investigation, instead one that demands remembrance, respect and the acknowledgement of individuals.

In recent weeks I have attended talks on the Holocaust, the first one contained two sides of the story, a Jewish father, Ernst Bornstein, that survived the holocaust and wrote his story. The second, was about a secret hidden from a boy for nearly 50 years of his grandfather as an SS officer. These two opposing stories were so well intertwined by the speakers that I was able to visualise how they were connected. Usually, I view the horrors of the Holocaust separately to the personal lives of the SS members – it is such a juxtaposition that my mind automatically places them apart. However, Derek Niemann and Noemie Lopian forced my mind to merge the pictures and enhance the true horrors of this event. From this talk I bought A Nazi in the Family: The Hidden Story of an SS Family in Wartime Germany by Derek Niemann, an extremely interesting book which connected beautifully painted pictures with horrific visuals in ways I never wished to think about.

Another talk I went to delivered by Anthony Annakin-Smith, used letters written by ‘prisoners’ in concentration camps and ghettos, and their families. As a history student, I was embarrassed due to my lack of knowledge surrounding such letters – I never realised that Auschwitz had a post office. The letters had to follow certain rules, including what could be written in them, the Nazis censored all letters and it can be seen in some that they have taken a pair of scissors to cut out an offending sentence. Therefore, the letters did not describe the torture they were withstanding or the evil that was present in the camp – instead they mentioned that they were well and how grateful they were to hear from their family. We even looked at letters that had been forced for propaganda purposes – to show the outside world that everything was fine. Usually the authors of these letters would be killed, and their post sent after.

Both talks were no doubt harrowing and provoked emotion, but two things really stuck out for me. One, that we never seem to remember those that died as individuals and two, that many people who you would not think of as evil can commit evil acts.

Now, not to say that we don’t remember those that are dead – both that died during the Holocaust or survived it – as we ensure we do with things such as the Holocaust Memorial Day (today), discuss it via education and have heritage sites dedicated to this. However, who do we remember? The 11 million that died, the 6 million Jews. What horrific statistics. The population of Scotland is 5.3 million people, double that and you still quite aren’t at 11 million; it is an incomprehensible number.

We think of all those shoes in a pile, the amount of hair collected, images of people crammed in carriages, heaps of the deceased. A lump is brought to our throat. But do we remember them as individuals? Each person that died had a story, a family, a history and now they are a statistic. Of course, their family will especially remember them and how are we supposed to remember 11 million individuals! But I know, that if I died because I stood up to a regime, because a regime wanted to eradicate my religion or because the regime didn’t like me that I wouldn’t want to be labelled as a statistic.

It is impossible to remember every single person’s name (I barely remember the names of my classmates) and that is not what I am attesting to, however it needs to be remembered that this wasn’t an individual killing of 11 million people, but a killing of 11 million individual people, in different, torturous ways.

Derek Niemann described his grandad and the family living in Germany through pictures that his grandad had taken. Along with these pictures Derek recounted humorous narratives of family characteristics and events that had the whole audience chuckling. He would then drastically flip the emotion to explain what was happening to Jewish people at the time and the influence his grandfather had. It was a rollercoaster of emotions and hit home (extremely hard) how easy it is for ordinary people to do extraordinarily evil things.

The feeling I received from both talks was inspiration. I was reminded of how easily this event happened with marginalisation and desperation, I was inspired to take to social media and raise this concern of the past repeating itself. One of my lecturers tells a story of how whenever his mother asked why he would want to study history he always replied by explaining how if we look to history and see our mistakes, we won’t be able to repeat them. He chuckles slightly and notes how that is not what he believes today, we join in on the laughter – history always repeats itself. Yet, when we think about it worry consumes us. Today hate crimes are on the rise, marginalisation is on the rise, newspapers seem to be able to get away with propaganda and religious/nationalistic hate. The Holocaust did not suddenly happen, anti-Semitism was not something created overnight, it was division, intolerance and desensitisation created by politicians and mass media that influenced it. Each of the speakers felt it was needed at the end to explain why remembering the holocaust was needed today and each of them believed that marginalisation was on the rise and ordinary people were being desensitised.

I always worry about what I would have done in Nazi Germany, I worry that I wouldn’t have fought back, stood up, or defended others – instead I would have been consumed by fear and made sure I was safe. But, hopefully, that is not something I will ever realise, instead I need to do something now. I need to strike back at the hate for others, with Brexit, terrorist attacks and immigration hot topics at the moment, the world seems to be becoming filled with separation and hatred – it needs to end, the Holocaust Memorial Day should remind us of where these feelings have led us in the past.

This blog post has not been historical, it has not answered a question. However, during many an existential crisis, when I question my purpose and if my life has in fact achieved anything, my Dad always tells me that if I change one person’s opinion then I have done my part. Hopefully this has inspired you to look further into the holocaust, to look for the individuals, or to see some similarities between the world that the Nazis had created and the world around us now.