In Honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day

 My post for Holocaust Remembrance Day:

I am glad to see many people speaking out for this day of the commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz.

I am grateful to the brave and wise souls who have I met in person and in reading on my journey to becoming the Holocaust and Genocide scholar I am today.

However, there is a need for more than just a day to honor the people and cultures that have been brutally annihilated.

There is a need for honoring more than just the victims of the Holocaust; there were many genocides in the Nazi era, and many people of other minority statuses also killed in Auschwitz and the other extermination camps, or in their own towns and surrounding forests.

There is a need for honoring more than just those who were slain at the hands of the Nazis. We should not overlook the horrors of Stalin. We cannot overlook the horrors of hatred wherever it is planted. We cannot turn a blind eye to the prejudices, inequities, and violence in our own world today, in our own country and towns and comm

Photo taken in the halls of Yad VaShem

unities. The Holocaust started small. Prejudice is not limited to one geographical locale or decade in the past.

There is a need for honoring more than just the victims. I have been so deeply inspired by the rescuers. There are so many brave souls in every time of crisis, people who are guided by a light of humanity. Their actions of love and justice transcend generations, too. Today's holiday is on this date because a group of Ukrainian soldiers entered a camp in Nazi-occupied Poland and liberated the few people who remained alive there. We cannot forget the "righteous" and the rescuers.

Honor the fallen and injured from all places and times. Honor the people who do not succumb to prejudice and hatred but who rise above it, risking their own comfort and life to preserve others' lives and humanity. Honor the marginalized people from the Holocaust, but also marginalized people of today.

And how? you may wonder...

Learn the name and story of one person you didn't know from the Holocaust. There are so many on the Yad Vashem page, and there are so many testimonies available for free through the Shoah Foundation or local Holocaust museums.

Learn a little about what is going on in the Northern Triangle nations, in Haiti, in the Ukraine, in Myanmar, in our own cities.

Look for an organization that is helping people today and see what you can do to support them. (I am particularly fond of the CAIR Coalition for which I translate, First Friends of NY/NJ to which we donated funds raised with our first Songs for Humanity, Welcome Home-- a group that helps immigrant children and families in Jersey City, and then the groups that I did my dissertation on: UUSC, AFSC, JDC and more.)

Reach out to someone from a different culture and learn something that goes beyond the stereotypes. Make new friends. Help those who are struggling in your own community.

We can't forget the Holocaust. We can't forget the power of hatred and our human capacity for cruelty.

But we also can't forget the human capability for kindness. Do your part for the people who need you today. Find your own way to share your spark to help out.

-- and please know.... I think I have an amazing collection of activists and world-changers among the friends on my Facebook page. If you already do all this, or any of this, thank you.