We Are Allowing the Holocaust to Be Forgotten...:Literally

  

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Yes, it was on this day 75 years ago that the Soviets liberated  the Auschwitz Death Camp, and so it came to symbolize the Holocaust and the need to remember the tragedy, in hopes that it would never be repeated again.

Unfortunately, it is being forgotten. Not even one century has yet passed, and the numbers are staggering, attesting to the fact that young people all over the world do not know or really understand the Holocaust.

Here are some snippets from a recent article (see link below) that reveal just how seriously this plague of forgetfulness is getting:

On the eve of Monday's 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, a new study has found that a quarter of French millennials haven’t heard of the Holocaust, while an earlier study of American millennials found that 66 per cent did not know what Auschwitz was.  

More than 1.3 million people were murdered at Auschwitz, 90 per cent of them Jews. By the time the genocide of the Jews across Europe had ended, more than 3 million Jews had been wiped from existence in the death camps. The total Jewish dead stood in the vicinity of 6 million. They died in all corners of Europe, from disease in ghettos, from poison gas, mass shootings, live burial, beatings, incineration.  

Seventy eight per cent of the Jews who had lived in territories that fell to the Nazis, perished. In comparison, between 1.4 per cent to 3 per cent of the non-Jewish population in the same territory was killed. Dynasties and entire families, great sages and common workers, Nobel laureates and humble students, whole villages and communities, all disappeared. Thriving Jewish intellectual and cultural centres like Krakow and Vilnius that had bustled with Jewish life, now reduced to rude husks, urban memorials of human depravity.     

Scary stuff. Particularly when hate and violent acts and sentiments against groups of people appear to be on the rise.





Here is the link to the article I used in writing this sad blog entry about how we have allowed young people to not remember the Holocaust and the lessons that we should have learned from it:

Lest we forget? 75 years after Auschwitz, too many do by Alex Ryvchin, January 26, 2020:

https://www.smh.com.au/national/lest-we-forget-75-years-after-auschwitz-too-many-do-20200124-p53ugv.html?fbclid=IwAR1WMnIptPpNMu7_vSfL_qNKp5ML__7gJssiqQ0rNiBjZe9vW9FO7v8NQu8

One Writer Emphasizes That Holocaust Remembrance Day Should Be Remembered Especially Now In the Wake of Rise in Hatred

 

Olivia B. Waxman just wrote an article prior to Holocaust Remembrance Day, which was yesterday, which was published by Time.         

     

In the article, Waxman suggests that it is more important now, more than ever, to remember the lessons of the Holocaust, with the rise of hate groups. Just weeks after the attack on the Capitol building, where there was an obvious presence of white supremacist groups and white supremacists  more generally, including that idiot who wore a “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt, we really should remember the Holocaust and how it came to be with a sense of urgency. After all, in recent years, we have seen hate crimes spike, we have seen immigrant children separated from their parents, and we have seen white supremacists feeling emboldened by the political rise of a figure who they felt served as their champion.     

         

This is an interesting article that should make you think, and I recommend taking a look and reading it.              

Here is the link to the article which got me on this topic:

'Hate Never Disappears. It Just Takes a Break for a While.' Why the U.S. Capitol Attack Makes Holocaust Remembrance Day More Important Than Ever by Olivia B. Waxman, January 25, 2021:

https://time.com/5932489/white-supremacy-holocaust-nazi-history-capitol-attack/?fbclid=IwAR1sJLo40UuhTP_NWAnW6KxDEO4F-hTvROXQ_oPGbBSOt_jDvvzXmtmZel4

January 27th is International Holocaust Remembrance Day

   

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Every year on this day, the people of Israel stop what they are doing to remember the victims of the Holocaust decades ago. Roughly six million Jews were killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust, with millions of them being killed in manmade factories that produced death. These are known as the death camps, and they are, thankfully, unique in history. No other nation has ever built such places specifically to kill a portion of it's population.

The victims are remembered today, lest we ever forget the suffering that they went through. Forgetting will likely doom us to repeat these ugly, inhumane chapters in history.

This video clip was from two years ago, although it is a great clip that shows that people have not forgotten the victims of the Holocaust:





Book Review: Smoky Joe's Cafe by Bryce Courtenay

Seeing as though today is Australia Day, it seemed fitting to do a book review from an Australian author. My favorite Australian author is Bryce Courtenay, and I have been rereading some of his works recently. In the others, I was a bit surprised by how much I had forgotten, but I remembered the books enough to know more or less what to expect, and the general arch of the story. This one, however, seemed somehow a bit more distant, more remote. There was a lot of stuff that, truth be told, I simply could not remember during the first reading, which was strange and perhaps a little alarming. 

Smoky Joe's Cafe is very different book than the previous book from Courtenay that I reviewed late last year, "Whitethorn." That one took place in South Africa, as did "The Power of One," the book Courtenay is best known for around the world, as well as it's follow-up, "Tandia."

No, this one takes place in more contemporary times, although it is not quite the present day. This book is supposed to take place in the late 1970's and early 1980's. It features a group of Australian Vietnam veterans, who suffered severe trauma during their experiences in Vietnam. It is told by one of the vets, Thommo, who is married to a beautiful woman, Wendy. Together, they have a young daughter, Anna, who has serious medical issues that are likely related to the exposure to Agent Orange by the Vietnam veterans (in this case, her father Thommo).

The Australian government (much like the American government at the time) was trying to avoid any kind of responsibility. So with the government trying to do everything to bury these kinds of stories from their Vietnam veterans, it is up to the band of veterans whom Thommo served with in Vietnam to try and come up with a solution. What they come up with is kind of genius. They will sell marijuana, which at the time was illegal, so it is extremely risky. 

Thommo's wife, Wendy, knows something is up. And she forces her way into the scheme, which winds up rowing more sophisticated and involved seemingly by the minute. During the course of this book, you likely will learn all about different sorts of marijuana, and even get an idea of how it is made, and the different uses. Good information.

Meanwhile, the veterans getting together serves almost as therapy, at least to a certain degree. They discuss what they saw and learned during their time in Southeast Asia, including some of the horrors. Somehow, I was taken by surprise at how graphic some of the depictions of the violence wound up being here. Again, I do not remember it being quite like that during my first reading. Makes me wonder just how closely I was paying attention (or not). 

In the end, we get a different perspective of the Vietnam experience, which is usually told from the American perspective. Here, we get the Australian experience, which was different. We also get to know a little bit of a North Vietnamese point of view at times, with one of the characters. Some interesting stuff here. 

This was an enjoyable read. Again, I found it more powerful than that first reading. Also, I got more into the book this time around than that last time (which was probably somewhere around 2006 or 2007, maybe 2008 or so). This book is generally not available to American audiences, or at least was not, so it might be more difficult than usual for Americans to get their hands on a copy (at least a physical one). It likely will not be available in a local library, unless you live in one of the British Commonwealth countries.

If you do get a chance to read this book, I strongly recommend it! 

January 26 is Australia Day

  

January 26 - Australia Day

It was on this day in 1788 that 11 British ships commanded by Governor Arthur Phillip, and carrying convicts, arrived on the banks of Port Jackson in New South Wales. Phillip also raised the Union Jack, and the beginnings of what is now modern-day Australia came to be.

Initially, Australia was designed as a penal colony, as an agricultural working camp for British convicts.

It was rough going early on, but the colony eventually managed to survive.

In 1818, January 26th was honored as the anniversary of the founding of Australia. Once Australia gained independence, this date was recognized as "Australia Day", a national holiday honoring the arrival of Phillip and the British.

Understandably, this holiday is recognized in different ways, particularly along the color lines. While whites in Australia generally celebrate in a similar manner as Americans celebrate Independence Day and the French Celebrate Bastille Day, Aborigines generally recognize it as a day of mourning, not all that dissimilar to native Americans regarding Thanksgiving. For them, the day marks the beginning of the end of their traditional way of life, as the British began the process of spreading out across the continent.

January 26th is the Anniversary of the Republic of India

 

Today marks the 69th anniversary of the establishment of the Republic of India on January 26, 1950. The constitution went into effect, which qualified India as the world's biggest democracy in terms of population. 

It was a struggle to come up with a solution, and unfortunately, Gandhi was not successful in keeping the peace in the region. While he was successful in using methods of nonviolent activism to gain India's independence from Great Britain, Pakistan soon broke off, and religious tensions remained very strong, even militant. 

Yet, this is a date that should be recognized, as one of the world's biggest countries (projected to become the biggest in a few decades) and already the biggest democracy celebrates 66 years since the Republic of India was established on this date.  

On This Day in History -The Beatles Get Together to Complete Yellow Submarine Film

  

 

So this was significant on this day in Beatles history.

All four members of the Fab Four went to Twickenham Film Studios to help finish up the Yellow Submarine film.

Below is the link:

The Beatles film their Yellow Submarine appearance published by The Beatles Bible, Thursday 25 January 1968:

https://www.beatlesbible.com/1968/01/25/the-beatles-film-their-yellow-submarine-appearance/?fbclid=IwAR04MaCRo-56PV5vPA2MJMwq1emwT47wuYnDPa8tUMh7Td78cItE0AaXUWA#google_vignette