Holocaust Education Week pleads "never again

The week of November 4th, Holocaust Education Week was a time to reflect on the horrors of war and remember the importance of the statement "never again". The Holocaust saw the extermination of roughly six million Jews between 1933 and 1945, not to mention the targeting of numerous other racial and social groups. It was the greatest human tragedy of the twentieth century, and remains forever a black mark on human history.

U of T is not turning a deaf ear to events that transpired a lifetime ago. Several events were organized on campus to mark this morose week. Thursday, November 1st, Judy Weissenberg spoke of "Women in the holocaust: State, Citizenship, and gender". Having survived the holocaust herself, Weissenberg shared her anecdotal tale of her and her sisters under the Nazi's fascist rule.

The following week, on Wednesday November 7th, Dr. Meinecke gave a presentation on the basic tenets of Nazi anti-Semitic and racial ideology, explaining how these views of the world contributed to the furthering the WWII attempt at ethnic cleansing.

Dr. Meinecke looked beyond the extermination of the Jewish people, the group to which the scope of holocaust study tends to be limited. He explained that while the Jews were the primary victims, Gypsies, the physically handicapped and others too found themselves sentenced to death at Hitler's concentration camps, in addition to the torturous medical "experimentation" imposed on some.

Wednesday, November 14th, students will attend Udo Zimmerman's "White Rose", followed by a discussion with Dr. George Wittenstein, a surviving member of the White Rose resistance group. The White Rose was an anti-fascist student resistance group from the University of Munich who circulated leaflets throughout Germany in opposition to the Hitler and his Nazi regime.

The commemorative and educational events were all co-sponsored by the Hillel of Greater Toronto.

On Thursday, November 8th, the group Zionists @ UofT arranged for the holocaust survivor Irving Eisner to share his story with the students here at the university. There was a cross-section of students of all races present to hear his story.

Eisner was born in Czechoslovakia and sent to a concentration camp at the age of seventeen. Of his family of seven only he, his father and one sister survived the trials of the Holocaust. Eisner managed to survive by being productive in the work camps thanks to his youth, agility, and luck.

The room was quiet as Eisner described how they were denied basic human needs and expected to work until they dropped dead. This strategy, he explained, was "more profitable than killing us outright".

Eisner communicated his deep belief in the importance of retelling his story. He escaped death, he stated "to live and to tell...to let the future generations know so that they will never let it happen again."

After living through the horrors of WWII, Eisner described his difficult struggle to continue on living a 'normal' life. Nevertheless he, like all the other Holocaust Education Week speakers, has managed to take his experiences and use them to educate the future generations.

The events surrounding Holocaust education are an invaluable experience to hear history from those who lived it, to experience the perseverance of the human spirit and to promise to yourself to always remember. Lest we forget.

Even beyond the one minute on Remembrance Day when, out of respect, people take a minute to stop what they are doing, people are implored to constantly remember the victims of the holocaust and war. It is only the refusal to forget that ensures that these people will not have died in vain, that "never again" truly means just that.