This week something happened in a local high school that served as a reminder that Kristallnacht could happen again. What followed after makes that realization sink even deeper.
As so many communities do these days, ours has a Facebook group. Aside from the odd question about what contractor people recommend for a small job of some sort, there where three posts. Two of them really got people's blood boiling. One had to do with a toy table that somebody had left out and nobody bothered removing months for months. The other had to do with people not picking up after their dogs.
In between I posted the following and while I suspect many read it, most rested silently. Only a handful even acknowledged, let alone responded. It's not a sign of the times. It's an omen. A scary one.
This is what I wrote:
"So, I just wanted to share something that happened at a local high school this week. But, first, to not assume that everybody remembers, today was not only the day that many schools commemorated Remembrance Day.
It was also the end of Holocaust Education Week. As well, this week marked the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht (if you don't know what that is, please take a brief moment to look it up).
As well, it is the week that finally saw our Canadian government issue a formal apology for Canada’s 1939 decision to reject an asylum request from more than 900 German Jews aboard the MS St. Louis ocean liner, sending them back into Nazi hands, where a quarter of them subsequently perished. This apology came on the heels of last week's shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue where 11 more people died.
If you feel that these things are all far and remote, either in distance or in years, they are not.
This week, at a local high school, a boy ran up to the classroom of a Jewish teacher and shouted, "which one of you are Jewish?" to the students who happened to be out in the hall. The fact that this teacher is Jewish was known to him as he taunted the shocked observers and threw a bag of dimes on the floor. He wasn't acting alone. Standing, watching, by the wall were a group of girls. Though he ran like a coward when the teacher demanded that he come to face her, the girls did not run. They didn't show any sign of shame and they refused to tell the teacher who the boy was.
Today, the school took measures to punish the boy and comfort the kids in the class that witnessed what happened. But, so far, those girls, the willing mass participants, as far as I'm aware, were not punished.
If you pay attention to the news, anti-semetic sentiment is on the rise, even here in Canada. Even now, in 2018.
On November 11th, all manner of media will be flooded with beautiful photos and drawings and the words "Lest We Forget," likely followed by a heartwrenching melody. We'll likely see images of soldiers who lost their lives in service or maybe even due to PTSD and watch the few remaining vets, along with their modern counterparts lay wreaths at various ceremonies. But, unless we learn to remember the second half of that phrase, long since replaced by three hollow dots, history truly will repeat itself, and all those brave men, women and children would have died for absolutely nothing."
One person responded. She wrote:
"This was well said, especially in light of recent tragic events. My family stems from four sole survivors of their respective families that lived in concentration camps during WWII. Two of them were Jewish, two of them were catholic and their country was invaded by nazis and they were tortured in camps. The heinous torture that the witnessed and endured is enough to make you ill. We have heard the storeys from their mouths to our ears.
It’s extremely important to remember that people suffered and were persecuted for reasons fueled by hate and propaganda- and it it’s still going on today. And not even only far away. I have personally even seen swatiskas in a [local] park. That may seem harmless to some people who have never experienced such discrimination, but to those who have, it’s a terrifying message that you are unwanted here and need to go away. We have seen it time again where the creators of such vandalism take the opportunity to violently send their message to innocent passerby’s. I personally know of victims of such assaults in Toronto.
It’s important to remind our children that there is zero tolerance for discrimination of anyone. It’s not good enough to remember the suffering and thank those who helped. It went on for way too long and it should never happen again (to anyone, anywhere). I think that is the underlying message of Remembrance Day. It’s sad to me that those girls in your story cowardly did nothing to stop it...it’s a sensitive topic for many, but that’s how it starts."
Less than ten people liked the like button and nobody commented. It became simply another forgotten dialogue with one more response from me and a final. "Exactly," from her.
"Exactly," I wrote. "What we never seem to mention is that Hitler came to power through popular consensus, in a democratic election, on an economic platform. Long before the Nazis figured out how to gas in mass executions they burned people alive in pits not far from where the winds carried the stench of human flesh to nearby villages. People knew what was happening and said they did not. This is how it starts. A bag of dimes boldly thrown on the ground and a vile cat call, in a multi-cultural hallway, in a place where nothing like this could ever happen."
After that things went back to the status quo. Another posting about some mundate household chore that the owner doesn't know how to handle.
What did Shakespeare write? Something wicked this way comes ... . Oh, but, it's okay it was said by an old witch, and she was probably Jewish.
As so many communities do these days, ours has a Facebook group. Aside from the odd question about what contractor people recommend for a small job of some sort, there where three posts. Two of them really got people's blood boiling. One had to do with a toy table that somebody had left out and nobody bothered removing months for months. The other had to do with people not picking up after their dogs.In between I posted the following and while I suspect many read it, most rested silently. Only a handful even acknowledged, let alone responded. It's not a sign of the times. It's an omen. A scary one.
This is what I wrote:
"So, I just wanted to share something that happened at a local high school this week. But, first, to not assume that everybody remembers, today was not only the day that many schools commemorated Remembrance Day.
It was also the end of Holocaust Education Week. As well, this week marked the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht (if you don't know what that is, please take a brief moment to look it up).
As well, it is the week that finally saw our Canadian government issue a formal apology for Canada’s 1939 decision to reject an asylum request from more than 900 German Jews aboard the MS St. Louis ocean liner, sending them back into Nazi hands, where a quarter of them subsequently perished. This apology came on the heels of last week's shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue where 11 more people died.
If you feel that these things are all far and remote, either in distance or in years, they are not.
This week, at a local high school, a boy ran up to the classroom of a Jewish teacher and shouted, "which one of you are Jewish?" to the students who happened to be out in the hall. The fact that this teacher is Jewish was known to him as he taunted the shocked observers and threw a bag of dimes on the floor. He wasn't acting alone. Standing, watching, by the wall were a group of girls. Though he ran like a coward when the teacher demanded that he come to face her, the girls did not run. They didn't show any sign of shame and they refused to tell the teacher who the boy was.
Today, the school took measures to punish the boy and comfort the kids in the class that witnessed what happened. But, so far, those girls, the willing mass participants, as far as I'm aware, were not punished.
If you pay attention to the news, anti-semetic sentiment is on the rise, even here in Canada. Even now, in 2018.
On November 11th, all manner of media will be flooded with beautiful photos and drawings and the words "Lest We Forget," likely followed by a heartwrenching melody. We'll likely see images of soldiers who lost their lives in service or maybe even due to PTSD and watch the few remaining vets, along with their modern counterparts lay wreaths at various ceremonies. But, unless we learn to remember the second half of that phrase, long since replaced by three hollow dots, history truly will repeat itself, and all those brave men, women and children would have died for absolutely nothing."
One person responded. She wrote:
"This was well said, especially in light of recent tragic events. My family stems from four sole survivors of their respective families that lived in concentration camps during WWII. Two of them were Jewish, two of them were catholic and their country was invaded by nazis and they were tortured in camps. The heinous torture that the witnessed and endured is enough to make you ill. We have heard the storeys from their mouths to our ears.
It’s extremely important to remember that people suffered and were persecuted for reasons fueled by hate and propaganda- and it it’s still going on today. And not even only far away. I have personally even seen swatiskas in a [local] park. That may seem harmless to some people who have never experienced such discrimination, but to those who have, it’s a terrifying message that you are unwanted here and need to go away. We have seen it time again where the creators of such vandalism take the opportunity to violently send their message to innocent passerby’s. I personally know of victims of such assaults in Toronto.
It’s important to remind our children that there is zero tolerance for discrimination of anyone. It’s not good enough to remember the suffering and thank those who helped. It went on for way too long and it should never happen again (to anyone, anywhere). I think that is the underlying message of Remembrance Day. It’s sad to me that those girls in your story cowardly did nothing to stop it...it’s a sensitive topic for many, but that’s how it starts."
Less than ten people liked the like button and nobody commented. It became simply another forgotten dialogue with one more response from me and a final. "Exactly," from her.
"Exactly," I wrote. "What we never seem to mention is that Hitler came to power through popular consensus, in a democratic election, on an economic platform. Long before the Nazis figured out how to gas in mass executions they burned people alive in pits not far from where the winds carried the stench of human flesh to nearby villages. People knew what was happening and said they did not. This is how it starts. A bag of dimes boldly thrown on the ground and a vile cat call, in a multi-cultural hallway, in a place where nothing like this could ever happen."
After that things went back to the status quo. Another posting about some mundate household chore that the owner doesn't know how to handle.
What did Shakespeare write? Something wicked this way comes ... . Oh, but, it's okay it was said by an old witch, and she was probably Jewish.
