This Friday, the 27th of January, is Holocaust Memorial Day, and this years theme is "How can life go on?". The Holocaust was a horrid event, in which 6 million Jews were thoughtlessly murdered, along with 5 million others, including gypsies, gays, communists, and political enemies.
The theme of this year directly relates to the fact that survivors lost most, or all of their family in the mass killings. A striking quotation from a 13 year old boy, "Women to the right, men to the left, I never saw my mother again". It goes to show the horror of losing family members, and those who are lucky to survive, ask the question, "how can life go on?". I wish to share an extract from the story of Zigi Shipper, a Holocaust survivor, after moving to England after he was freed from Auschwitz-Birkenau:
For the first six months all I did was go to the cinema, eat, drink, and sleep. My mother wanted me to go to school and study but I had other ideas. I did learn English and then found a job in tailoring, which I hated. I had still made no new friends and felt quite lonely. Then one day I met someone who mentioned that there was a youth club in Belsize Park, London where young survivors like me met. One Saturday evening, I decided to go along to a Dance organised by the club. As I walked in I recognised boys that I had been with both in the ghetto and also in the camps. From then on everything in my life changed. I felt as though I had found my family again
Zigi was one of the lucky few to still have his mother, but he was traumatized after losing the rest of his family to the gas chambers. He managed to move on, and later forgives the Nazi's, though he says "my only regret was not finding out where my father was buried". Holocaust survivors have done a good job at educating young people about the Holocaust, but as there are few left, we must continue teaching people about the horrendous act, that was the Holocaust.
