They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up.
-- Martin Niemöller
Sixty-three years ago today, a quarter-century before I was born, the infamous death camp of Auschwitz was liberated.
The Germans are known for their efficiency and scientific prowess, and the Nazis used it to deadly effect. Twelve thousand people a day at Birkenau (Auschwitz II) alone. Eleven million people were murdered in the death camps, when all was said and done.
It's a number I can't even begin to wrap my head around, nor can I fully express the emotions (confusion, disgust, anger, and something I can't quite pin down) I feel. As a human being, I need to learn everything I can about the Holocaust. I need to understand how something like this could happen. I am compelled to visit Auschwitz, to see it for myself, to stand where, for four and a half years, unimaginable horrors happened on a daily basis. Human beings systematically being destroyed by other human beings. When did the Allies know? Why didn't they do anything sooner? I need to know. I need to understand.
Today is UN Holocaust Remembrance Day, and I am watching the documentaries on History Television. Even though I was not born when all of this was happening (even my father wasn't born until 1944, and my mother in 1948), I feel responsible. As a human being, I feel responsible. If I was not there to say something against it (and to be honest, I don't know that I would have had the courage to do so), the least I can do is remember. Remember, and educate in what ways I can, and do what I can to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Canada is thought of as a fair, welcoming country. I am proud of being Canadian, and of our reputation in the world. But I felt sick to my stomach when I found this a few minutes ago:
"During the twelve years of Nazi terror, from 1933 to 1945, while the United States accepted more than 200,000 Jewish refuges; Palestine, 125,000; embattled Britain, 70,000; Argentina, 50,000; penurious Brazil, 27,000; distant China, 25,000; tiny Bolivia and Chile, 14,000 each, Canada found room for fewer than 5,000." Excerpted from NONE IS TOO MANY, Irving Abella and Harold Troper, Toronto, 1982 ISBD 0-919630-31-6. (Canada & The Jews of Europe, 1933-1948).
I consider myself to be an educated person, and I've studied more history than a lot of people out there. How could I not have known this? How could I automatically assume that, here in my own country, we were somehow better than others? And is that assumption the sort of seed that Nazi Germany and its assorted horrors sprang from?
Please take some time to visit Remember.org, the Holocaust Cybrary.
It's the very least we can do.
1 comment:
I know this post is well out of date so not sure if you'll find this, but I've actually read that book in its entirety. It's a sad story. There were actually entire ships of Jews, disabled, etc who arrived in Canadian harbours and were turned away. Most were captured by the Germans on the return trips. Many perished due to lack of supplies. Although the US took a fairly large number more than Canada they also turned many away in the same fashion.
This is what upsets me when I hear such finger pointing at the Germans over the Holocaust. Really the world had a play in it and Canada was no different. We are hypocrits to deny that part of history to be taught, imho.
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