Friday, September 11, 2009

"First they came for the socialists..."

Jim, Piper and I went to the Holocaust Museum two days ago, and it's really impossible to put into words what it felt like. The devastation that occurs in your soul as you witness how easy it is to convince the world that this group or that group is responsible for all the problems they're experiencing is devastating.

But you learn that this wasn't merely about the Nazis. The hate thrown at Jews began long ago after the destruction of the temple, shortly after the death of Jesus. They were flung across the world, herded into ghettos, decried as "Christ-killers," banned from "polite society," forced into conversions, driven from one country to another, blamed for disease, poverty, etc. etc. etc. until it culminated into Hitler's decision to exact a "final solution."

I'm reposting a video I shot a couple of years ago while on a cruise. Boris was a passenger who told me his own incredible story of how he managed, beyond all hope, to be saved from Buchenwald, a concentration camp.



Even today, people are surprised to hear about our own witch hunts during the 50s, the millions of murders in Stalinist Russia, the millions killed by Pol Pot, terrorist actions of the KKK, a group that still exists to this day in this country, the genocides in Sudan and Rwanda, the religious hatred of Al Qaeda -- and it goes on and on.

As injustice, war and hate continue to fill the world, what all of us must do, as Jim demonstrates through the voice of Zero Mostel is to never forget. And to create peace and justice around us in any way we can.

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