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International Holocaust Remembrance Day
January 28, 2012 - 12:15am
Sorry if some one else has already posted on this today, but I don't think International Holocaust Remembrance Day should go unmentioned.
Truly remarkable story here:
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/01/27/bernie-m-farber-the-heroines-of-auschwitz/
Quote:
This heroine of Auschwitz died on May 1, 2011, aged 82. On this day above all others, her story is worth remembering - a rare and uplifting tale of survival from the very heart of the Nazis' kingdom of death.
Wilf, my parents were survivors of the Nazi genocide (I don't care for the term "Holocaust", which I first heard in the 1980s - not sure who invented it, why they capitalized the "H", and why it was applied specifically to the genocide of the Jewish people, but that's another discussion).
Yet, until I read your post, I had never heard of "International Holocaust Remembrance Day". Google tells me it was invented in 2005, by a resolution of the General Assembly? Can you or someone tell me what it's intended to commemorate? The Jewish genocide? the Nazi genocide overall? Other historical instances of genocide? My question is sincere, because I have a hard time understand why this day suddenly came into being in 2005.
When I was a child, we used to gather annually in synagogues and meeting halls to mark the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising - as did Jews in many countries around the world. The date was April 19, but our commemorations tended to fluctuate, because we used the Hebrew calendar (it was the 27th day of Nissan, but that's neither here nor there). Here is an example of such an event in Argentina in 1953!
In later years - I don't know when exactly - with the increasingly reactionary and pro-imperialist nature of the state of Israel, the commemoration got overshadowed and abandoned, replaced (in the same season) by things like "Independence Day". Too bad, that was a loss.
But what's this January day? I'd like to know.
ETA: Yes, I know what the January day is - what I want to know is how this became the symbol of the Nazi genocide 60 years after the fact. Besides Bernie Farber using his article to promote Israel, the so-called "March of the Living", and the so-called Darfur "genocide" trope invented by Zionist organizations together with the U.S. government, which I thought they had now abandoned.
I see that it is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Wikipedia says Holocaust Memorial Day (27 January) is a national event in the United Kingdom dedicated to the remembrance of the victims of The Holocaust first held in January 2001, and since 1996, 27 January has officially been Gedenktag für die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus (Anniversary for the Victims of National Socialism) in Germany. But German Wikipedia says the UK was first, and that it began in Israel in 1959.
I wonder if there was some reluctance to celebrate the Russian liberation of Auschwitz until after the fall of the Soviet Union? Did you see the comment under Farber's article, that the National Post has since deleted, where someone quoted an Auschwitz survivor as saying "My Messiah wore a Russian uniform"?
Auschwitz Kinderlager Liberation YouTube
I should make it clear that I fully support Wilf's motives in posting this here and reminding us of the need to remember crimes against humanity and celebrate the resilience of the human spirit. It's the motives of others (some governments, some organizations, some National Posts) which I question.
Exactly where in this article do you see the author "promote Israel"? And if does "promote" the March of the Living (it merely mentions that the survivor in question participated in it) is that a bad thing? Is a survivor sharing her experiences with a younger generation something to be condemned in your view?
Why would the NP moderators consider that statement offensive, especially some decades after the end of the Soviet Union? Those survivors were liberated by the Russians.
Because Messiah is good - it's some kind of religious thing I believe - while the Soviet Union was evil. And good can't be equated with evil. It's only been 20 years that Russia has been run by the billionaires, so it's too soon to forgive them. What's not to understand, laine?
I guess the juxtoposition of a revered religious leader with bad commies was too much, Unionist. Do they get their knickers in a twist when some comment that Jesus was a communist?
Jesus has been banned from commenting at the NP.
Apparently our own oligarchs are still disappointed with Putin for renationalising Yukos, gas and vodka production, and for throwing some oligarchs in jail for tax evasion and attempting to bribe the Duma in 2003. Yep they've been "backsliding on democracy" again. And so the Gladio Gang have decided it's time to surround Russia and China militarily in a desperate maneuver to try and revive the cold war. Hitler had designs on Iran, too. It's funny how history repeats.
Mr. Farber's story tells of a group of women who exhibited incredible courage in the face of certain death. Yet many here seem too pre-occupied with finding fault with the date, the historical reasons for remembrance, whether the Soviet influence is important...who gives a fig?
Why can we not honour the memory of Anna Heilman and these other brave women. Seems to me men have always been the focus of courageous acts during the Holocaust yet it was women who often were left behind with the children to face the transports and death camps. Here is a story of female courage, let's honour that story.
Word.
I agree, Anna Heilman's story deserves to be honoured - and there are countless others like hers. In looking at the website dedicated to her life, I noted the following:
Quite a remarkable coincidence, given what I wrote above. And yet another reason why the glorious memory of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising should not be diminished by the establishment of some questionable new "Holocaust Remembrance Day".
Unionist, I understand that the Auschwitz revolt was the only one to take place at the death camp making it an "uncommon" story. More importantly the revolt would never have happened without the incredible courage of these young Jewish women.
Is it possible to put your issue with the date aside, perhaps take it up elsewhere and lets simply remember these brave women. Let's stand in awe of their courage and honour them alone for a change instead of looking for side issues. It's not often we get to honour women in the Shoah, let's do so here with dignity
No, Mcsquared, this thread is about "International Holocaust Remembrance Day", and that's the subject I'm dealing with. No one, including you, has managed to explain what this day represents (just the Nazi genocide? other genocides? just the Jewish part?), and why it was found important to displace th 27th of Nissan, if indeed it's about the Nazi genocide.
I'm not sure how many more posts you'd like to dedicate to this one particular historical incident of these young Jewish women. What's your point here exactly? Why does that one story merit some particular detailed analysis?
I hadn't heard of this "International Day of Holocaust Remembrance" until recently either.
In my experience, Jews typically marked "Yom HaShoah" ("yom" being "day" and "Shoah" being the Hebrew term for the Holocaust). This has been an official day in Israel for a long time and, here in Canada, I remember it being observed in synagogues and Jewish schools.
A quick google search reveals that it was, in fact, originally set on the day of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising but was pushed by a couple weeks because the original date was the day immediately before Passover began.
Of course, Jews also have Tisha b'Av (the 9th day of the month of Av), which commemorates the destruction of the Temple and has become a sort of "catch-all" day to reflect on all of the various tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people, since if we were to create a day to mark every instance of people trying to destroy us, we'd quickly use up the calendar.
Women as heros? Is that what we are supposed to take from this?
Given how women have been treated in our societies post WW2, I cannot belive that you would turn this event as an emancipation of women's rights.
To me, this day is a commeroration of the liberation of those still surviving in Auschwitz when the Russian troops arived.
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Right. That's the date they chose (and I'm not sure who "they" is). And it's very interesting to contrast this event, namely of Jews as victims, with the longstanding real memorial day that I spoke of - Jews as fighters against the Nazis. That day was successfully subverted by the Zionists and turned into "Yom Hashoah" (the day of the holocaust) - commemorating the genocide rather than the spirit of resistance. I never remember the Hebrew term "Yom Hashoah" from my youth. It was always the anniversary of the uprising. We sang the Partisaner lied, in the synagogue. It was inspiring. For those who don't know it, here it is sung in Yiddish by Paul Robeson:
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 1943
Here are the lyrics in Yiddish and in English translation. Please read them. They are important to the Jewish people. The song was written by Hirsh Glick, an inmate of the Vilnius Ghetto who was inspired by news of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. He perished later at the hands of the Nazis, at the age of 22.
I'm not surprised by Mr.Tea's news that the Zionists have "moved" the anniversary of the uprising and coopted it for their own purposes. Jews standing up and fighting against racism and fascism - of all stripes - is not their preferred metaphor.
It's interesting that Unionist and Wilf mentioned reluctance by MSM to acknowledge the Russian liberations of Auschwitz and Birkenau. By what I've read, a few hundred thousand Jews did manage to escape Poland by 1939 and who fled Eastward. Wikipedia says that about 3 million were living in Baltic countries, Belarus, and Soviet territories west of the then Leningrad-Moscow-Rostov line.
And there are forensic efforts today to discover mass graves in those countries in order to do a proper accounting of the dead and missing. In Poland and Europe the final solution was designed to exterminate Jews for sure. But in Russia and Ukraine where the Nazis first mass murders occurred, there was no orderly final solution. The FS in Russia and Ukraine was simply extermination by aerial bombardments, machine guns and flamethrowers against Jews, Russians, Slavs. Gypsies and everyone not German. Mobile death squads had no directive to take POW's inside Russia or Ukraine.
ETA: And there were Jewish partisanis who fought with the Red Army in some battles. Leningrad comes to mind. Believe it or not I only discovered this by watching an HNN documentary on the subject. The epic battles at Leningrad and Stalingrad were major turning points of the war.
To Fidel's point, it is estimated that 800,000 Jews were killed in what was then eastern Poland (now western Ukraine) before the "final solution" decision and the establishment of camps and gas chambers, by mobile squads - most were shot and buried in mass graves. That's how most of my family members and relatives were killed. There is indeed a campaign ongoing, led by Catholic priest Father Patrick Desbois, to identify the killing fields. Fidel opened a thread about it a couple years ago, which contains useful information:
Holocaust by bullets
And lagatta opened a thread 6 years ago(!) which is where I first heard about Father Desbois - I then went to hear him speak in Montréal a couple of years later:
French Catholic priest intent on finding Jewish mass graves in Ukraine
The biggest challenge, as Father Desbois explained in his speech, was the passage of time. The witnesses who can help locate the graves won't be around much longer. But this young priest has done incredible work already.
Thank you.
Here's the words to another song I'd like to offer, by Leon Rosselson (with Rosselson's notes about the song following). You can purchase it online as a single, and it's also on several of Rosselson's CD's(including his Palestine fundraising CD "The Last Chance":
THE SONG OF MARTIN FONTASCH (Leon Rosselson)
The story's told of how in 1942
Martin Fontasch, poet, carpenter and Jew
With a band of Partisans through in his lot
Till he was taken by the Germans to be shot.
He was a peaceful man, quick to laugh and cry
At every village celebration he'd be there
With his songs that told of sadness and of joy
And the guitar he carried with him everywhere.
But when the Nazis came and killed his wife and son
Martin traded his guitar in for a gun.
This song is for those who are cast out by history
The banned and abandoned, the spurned and ignored
Whose homes have been taken, whose dreams have been broken
Who huddled on hillsides, demand to be heard.
The German soldier assigned to kill the Jew
As it happened, was a music-lover too.
And this bond, it seems, is what made him decide
To offer Martin one last wish before he died.
Soon my soul, Martin said, will dance on air.
Now all I ask is time to write my farewell song.
The German soldier checked his watch and said: One hour.
One hour? Martin remarked…that long?
And so he wrote and sang full-voiced to raise the dead
And then the German put a bullet in his head.
And this song…
The German kept the song and bragged of what he'd done
And showed it proudly - when in drink - to everyone.
He couldn't read the words and didn't seem to see
That a song cannot take root unless it's free.
And then one night two partisans set out -
The song must be released the man must die -
They slipped into his quarters, slit his throat
Took back the song and gave it wings to fly.
And it soared upon the wind and came to rest
And found a home among the damned and dispossessed.
And his song was for those…
Though we resist oppression, still our dream is peace,
Theirs is the mask of hatred, ours the human face.
Then let not our sufferings turn our souls to ice
So that we do to strangers what was done to us.
It is not with conquering armies I belong
Their bloody retribution I disown
Their songs of triumph I will never sing
For the God they worship turns them into stone.
If any teach their children how to hate and hurt,
Though they are Jews they do not live inside my heart.
And his song is for those who are cast out by history..
Let his song be a spark,
Let it fly through the dark like a bird.
Song Notes (Intruders): I found this story in Primo Levi's book about Jewish partisans in the Second World War 'If Not Now, When?' Another story is told in David Grossman's book about Palestinians in Israel, 'Sleeping on a Wire'. An elderly Arab goes to the civil administration to renew his driving licence. At the administration's headquarters, he sees Arabs, guarded by an Israeli soldier, kneeling down on one knee. The soldier tells him 'Kneel like them.' 'I'm already 85 years old,'the old man replies, 'and you can shoot me, but I won't kneel down.' The song Primo Levi attributes to Martin Fontasch is about standing up for yourself ('If I'm not for myself, who will be for me? If not this way how? If not now when?'). The song I've given him, fifty years on, is, for obvious reasons, rather different.
The thread began with Wilf Day linking to the story of heroic women who led the only recorded revolt at Auschwitz. Sadly some then seemed to question why we needed to acknowledge women as heroes? And then it becomes a soapbox for other politics from why this date of remembrance to songs on Palestinian resistance.
I feel that it sullies the memory of these brave women. Then again they are women
Nobody here was minimizing the heroism of these women. It's just that you can't reduce this discussion to any one group and any one moment. It touches on many, many people and many, many things.
Remarkable. What a selfless act it was to donate their lives like that so that others might live.
The point, I believe, is that women's histories are largely underrepresented and often ignored in favour of the heroic deeds of men. Rabble.ca exists to promote marginalized voices and under reported stories. The story of this group of brave women deserves better than to be lumped into the generalized discussion.
Thank you Rebecca, you articulated the issue much better than I
Saint John has its memorial event on Yom Hashoah.
I suggest this thread be moved into the feminist forum.
And why would that be Unionist? Can female heroism only be told in the feminist forum? Are we not able to celebrate the courage of women on this thread? I'm not sure I can believe what I read sometimes. It just terribly disappoints.