Every year, in an sober display of respect, the whole country of Israel pauses for two minutes at 10:00 AM on the 27th of Nisan. People pause wherever they are, including some stopping their cars on the highway, getting out, and joining the national moment of silence to remember the six million victims of the greatest tragedy in Jewish history. The day is known as Yom HaShoah or Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laG’vurah (Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day.) It started in 1951 and became an official observance as a law passed by the Knesset in 1959.
For the past two decades, I have tried to expose people to this important day and have written many articles to bring people’s attention to it. I have increasingly felt pressure from people of all ages and walks of life, regularly reminding me that I talk too much about the Holocaust and that I dwell too much on an event of the past that needs to be left alone because it cannot be explained. I have also noticed the increasing belief–especially in our younger generation–that the Holocaust was exaggerated or inflated as if to help with the rebirth of Israel as a modern state. Then you also have those who claim that the Holocaust never happened. In short, I have often been accused of overreaction…Then, October 7, 2023, happened!
Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel claimed the lives of 1200 innocent victims and led to 240 hostages being taken to Gaza (half of them still in captivity). It was The Highest Jewish Death Toll Since The Holocaust. Since then, antisemitism has gone through the roof with absolutely no sign of slowing down. The recent US Campus uprising that is nearing the level of an intifada, gives me reasons to be very concerned. Signs reading “Go Back to Poland” or “Final Solution” are terrifying reminders of the past. How is it possible for the current generation to make such statements against the Jews and for most of the world to once again become bysatnders? Here are a few facts we need to remember as we observe Yom HaShoah 2024.
• The Holocaust didn’t happen in a vacuum: It was a slow progression of anti-Jewish sentiment that started as theological anti-Judaism with no animosity. In the words of author and historian Raul Hilberg, “The missionaries of Christianity had said in effect: You have no right to live among us as Jews. The secular rulers who followed had proclaimed: You have no right to live among us. The German Nazis at last decreed: You have no right to live.” It’s 2024, and we are back at step two when Jews are told to go away. Step three is next…Pay attention!
• The Holocaust officially started on the night of Kristallnacht (November 9-10, 1938.) While the casualties were less than 200, the destruction of businesses and synagogues was massive. Businesses were marked as Jewish with big white stars of David painted on facades. The goal was to identify where the Jews were for easier location and persecution. Fast forward to 2023. Soon after October 7, in Paris and its suburbs, blue stars of David were stenciled on Jewish properties to, again, identify where the Jews live. Additionally, from the US Campus violence, we have also seen private information about Jewish professors published by pro-Hamas protesters. It recently also happened on a larger scale in Australia and as part of a 23andMe data breach that took place just before the Hamas attack. Jewish people are being located…Pay attention!
• The Holocaust was facilitated by the sending of Jews into ghettos: Once the various European Jewish communities were identified, the next step was to gather them within controlled areas where they became confined 24/7 with very little room to move freely in and out. This was the short era of the Ghettos. They started to pop up all over Eastern Europe with the most infamous ones in Lodz and Warsaw. Originally, the Jewish people were told that they were gathered and grouped together in ghettos “for their own safety”, but in reality, they were being temporarily corralled before being shoved in cattle cars on their way to the death camps. This all was committed by a group of people considered one of the most educated and cultured countries in Europe at the time. As a result of the Campus violence, Jewish students and faculty have been asked to go home and finish school online “for their own safety.” How long before it is no longer safe for Jews to even live in their own homes? Pay attention!
As we remember the victims of the Holocaust and we continue to pray for the families of the victims and the hostages of Oct. 7, We must also pay attention. When the Nazis started the death factories, noboby believed that civilized people would be capable of such atrocities, and they kept it very much a secret as long and as well as they could.
Today, the enemies of the Jews in the land of Israel and in the diaspora are rallying behind the motto “Final Solution.” Some kids don’t even know what it means, but plenty of people do, and we have no reason to believe that they don’t mean what they are saying. If there was ever a time for Christians to unite and redeem the past, it is today!
