The Holocaust

The Holocaust took place 2-3 generations ago. Most young Ashkenazic Jewish people today have a grandparent who is either a survivor or a child of a survivor. However, without visiting Yad Vashem, the US Holocaust Museum, or some other Holocaust museums, many young people today are dreadfully unaware of the magnitude of the barbarism that human beings are capable of. They have watched thousands of videos, yet barely anything relating to the Holocaust or World War II in general. 

Schindler’s List was perhaps one of the best films that depicted in real-life manner how dreadful and terrible life was for the few Jews who were fortunate enough to survive the Holocaust. But this film brings yet another dimension that brings the story to life for a younger generation that is disconnected from so much of our recent past.

It is so tempting to think that something like the Holocaust could never happen again in the 21st century. That would be pure naivete. It already has happened in small nuggets in different countries in the world. Even Israel experienced a one-day Holocaust on October 7th, which serves as a wake-up call to all world Jewry about the barabarians that Israel lives next to. 

For the most part, Israel is filled with people who have learned the proper lessons of the Holocaust. But there also exists a minority who think that the threats of the past do not reflect the threats facing the Jewish people in the future. They are wrong. The ideologies of the National Socalists in Nazi Germany and the radical Islamists today may not be carbon copies of each other. But, the bottom line is the same – they want to destroy the Jewish people – all Jewish people. They are the same as far as their final goals, and the only difference is that today the Jewish people have a State, an Army, and much more power than they have ever had in the last 2,000 years.