Lest we forget...

by Nagalingam Kumarakuruparan

Holocaust is a powerful reminder of where intolerance and prejudice can lead. It is a reminder of intolerance and perils.

Established in 1940, the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland is thought to have been responsible for the murders of up to 1.5 million people during the Holocaust. The camp, set up by the Nazis, became the largest of its kind.

When Soviet troops liberated around 200,000 prisoners from Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, they found 836,525 items of women's clothing, 348,820 items of men's clothing, 43,525 pairs of shoes, 460 artificial limbs and seven tons of human hair shaved from Jewish prisoners before they were killed.

As the world celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Liberation of the Auschwitz - Birkenau camp as Holocaust Memorial Day, it is important to remember that what happened seven decades ago is still relevant today.

Reasons

There are many reasons to remember the Holocaust, we should remember it because the Holocaust altered our global landscape and because even today the consequences of it continue to reverberate throughout society.

One has to only to watch the news to know that hatred that created the Holocaust did not end with the Nazis. A decade ago, 1,500 Holocaust survivors travelled to Auschwitz to mark the 60th anniversary of the death camp's liberation on January 27.

For the 70th anniversary there were only 300, the youngest in their '70s. "In 10 years there might be just one", said Z. Shipper, an 85-year-old survivor who attended the event in Southern Poland to pay homage to the millions killed by the Third Reich.

Change

In recent years, Shipper has been travelling around Britain to share his story with school groups, hoping to reach as many people as he can while he has the strength.

"The children cry, and I tell them to talk to their parents and brothers and sisters and ask them, "Why do we do it and why do we hate?" He said, "We must not forget what happened."

There are some who strongly believe that learning about the Holocaust now will not change anything. It won't bring back the six million Jewish men, women and children who were killed by the Nazis and it won't turn back the clock to prevent the subsequent Genocides that have happened since. It is time to leave the past in the past.

The argument is tempting. But many do not agree, and there are many reasons to disagree with that argument. But as the world moves inevitably closer to a post-survivor era, some fear that people are already starting to forget.

As Shipper says, they are people who saw the worst of humankind but still mustered the energy after the war to rebuild their lives, putting their faith again in humanity's best side.

"The most astonishing fact for me and many others is that the heritage of the survivors is a very optimistic one,' he said.

"They don't come out of the war desperate and bitter human beings who wanted to take revenge."

This optimism gives many of us hope that the world will continue to remember what happened at these camps. May be not eternally, but for a long time.