"Shoah Remembrance Day" Why the holocaust should never be forgotten
[note: this is a proem, pros-etry, a prose-poetry essay, an experiment in genres;
shoa(h) is the Hebrew / Jewish word for the Holocaust]
Genocide continues around the world in our time (Darfur, East Timor);
genocide happened in other times,
before the holocaust (North America, Rome);
we have already forgot the Shoah (Holocaust), in some ways,
when we've failed to apply its lessons.
That is perhaps why genocide continues, even today.
Even after the horrors of the Shoah.
So the holocaust should never be forgotten
because it has not stopped (really)
as long as genocide continues-
Rwanda.
Yugoslavia (Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia).
The Balkans.
Darfur, Sudan.
East Timor.
Somalia.
This is only the famous list.
And don't forget the Western passage of the slave trade and pogroms from centuries ago: genocide began in the haze of human memory.
And don't forget the First Peoples in North America.
This writing is about not forgetting.
Not forgetting is acting against.
Not forgetting is doing. More than saying,
"Never again."
Not forgetting is Why.
Why the holocaust should never be forgotten.
The holocaust was genocide and genocide continues from the distant past to the foreseeable future.
We must stop it.
These words are about evil.
We must never forget the holocaust to stop evil.
But re-membering, not forgetting,
is also about finding meaning,
even in the darkest times.
The holocaust, the shoa should not be forgotten so that we, as human individuals and society, can find meaning. From genocide. And use that meaning. To stop evil.
Use the meaning to prevent human suffering.
Use meaning to oppose genocide.
This is about re-membering the holocaust and those who died.
This is about Mengele's bones. You know who Mengele was, don't you?
Remember Mengele. To stop his ghost,
don't forget Mengele.
This is about not forgetting.
This is about Eichmann's Trial. Eichmann, Mengele, the shadows of terrible planning, of horrible realization, of Nazi horrors. Don't forget. And don't forget that we, too, might act as they did. Remember. Maybe some of us already are acting, planning-all in the name of security.
Don't forget the holocaust so that you don't repeat it in the name of National Security.
On Shoah Remembrance Day, everything stops in Israel. To remember. Why?
This writing is why the holocaust, the Shoah, should never be forgotten. These words are about how to remember it, how not to forget. How to (re)member it.
This is about remembering.
If only for a moment.
About (re)membering (into the human race):
Rwanda.
Yugoslavia (Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia).
The Balkans.
Darfur, Sudan.
East Timor.
Somalia.
And the names we don't know. The peoples we haven't heard of. Re: membering them all into the human race. All of the names and places, invited back in. This is why the shoa, the holocaust, must not be forgotten.
And don't forget the Western Passage of ships full of slaves.
And don't forget the First Peoples, Nations destroyed in what we now call the Americas.
And all the others, whose names we do not know.
Not forgetting is about taking responsibility.
Not forgetting is about the people whose lives
do not count
as much to some
as human lives do to most.
Not forgetting is about re-membering ourselves among the living.
These words, this story, this poem, this history are why the shoah, the holocaust, must never be forgotten.
Not forgetting is about re-collecting our collective desire for good, peace, harmony.
Not forgetting is about memory for the sake of good, about not forgetting the good because they are dead.
These words are about the holocaust(s). And why it (they) should never be forgotten. This is about how not to forget.
Remember this image-
In Israel, at any given moment, horns beep at intersections the moment the yellow flashing light joins the red light, the signal that a green light is coming. Drivers insist on moving forward, pushing the cars in front of them by creeping up before the green. Cars push through intersections on the other end, too, entering as the light turns red, a perpetual near-gridlock that somehow keeps flowing, however slowly, anyway.
Some of you think this is tangential.
Some of you think this is off-topic. But:
The horns are relentless.
Remembering is relentless.
Not forgetting is relentless.
Pedestrians hurry down the sidewalks, run into and out of shops; they run into the street, cross the street while speaking on their cell phones, stop traffic, ignore traffic.
The pedestrians are relentless.
The living are relentless.
The dead are relentless, restless, forgotten...
(Re)membering them is relentless, rest-less work.
Not forgetting is rest-less work.
This is why the Shoah must never be forgotten. This is how not to forget.
Remember this image:
Drivers and pedestrians signal a desire to keep pushing forward, our drive to get ahead, to be first, not to be late.
On April 22, 2007, however, at 10 am, everything stopped. I sat on a bus in Tel Aviv on my way to work, at a busy intersection. A man got out of his truck and stood next to it. Other drivers and passengers got out of their cars and stood. Then I heard the siren.
The siren called in the distance. It wailed. It cried.
It remembered.
This is about not forgetting
This is about remembering the dead.
This is about saving the living.
This is Shoah Remembrance Day. This is (re)membering. This is not forgetting.
Remember this image:
The bus driver stood. All of us inside the bus stood. Pedestrians stood still on the streets.
No one moved.
Not anywhere as far as the horizon in front, as far as the horizon in back, as far as the horizon to the right, as far as the horizon to the left did anyone move.
We remembered.
A nation remembered the Holocaust, the Shoah. For a brief moment, a siren's mournful wail, and a silent, standing people stretched time into the past. Everything was still.
Time reached from the past to this future.
Some of us on the bus remembered that during our generation, six million Jews died in the Holocaust. Some of us remembered that during our parents' generation or our grandparents' generation the Shoah was. Some likely remembered lost family members, or at least the names and echoing memories of those lost in their family.
Time reached from the past to the present and asked us about the future. What will we do? How will we measure ourselves? Who will we save, besides ourselves?
This is about not forgetting the suffering.
This is about trying to find meaning from the darkest times.
This is about remembering the living before they are dead.
This is about remembering the dead who were among the living.
The siren sound fell. Everyone on the bus sat back down, the pedestrians hurried along their ways again, and the moment the flashing yellow light joined the red light in front of us, a couple of horns sounded their drivers' impatience.
Perhaps it is fitting. For even after our moment of remembrance, genocide continues in our own time. Distant places names
like East Timor,
Rwanda,
and most recently,
Sudan echo like impatient horns.
Cambodia. Russia. The Americas in the 15th through 19th Centuries. History echoes with remembering the holocaust.
Remember this image:
Time for us to get a move on.
Time to go. Somewhere. Anywhere.
But here.
The horns honk, so we cannot stop to think. The traffic moves, commerce must continue. The people on the sidewalks hurry on to wherever it is that they are going.
These words are about not forgetting.
Not forgetting is about finding meaning even in the darkest times.
Not forgetting is about remembering, now, in the present.
Remembering the holocaust is about not forgetting who died.
Remembering the holocaust is about not forgetting who dies today.
This is why you and I must never forget the Shoah (the Holocaust).