Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, commemorates the Jewish martyrs of massive and murderous ethnic cleansing.
Today I speak as a survivor of this genocide. We lost six million Jews, a great calamity for all the world’s peoples. It was the time of the Second World War, in which tens of millions perished (40 million). Now, we analyze and try to make sense of that horrific experience and seek guidance for today’s challenges.
This is a story of survival against Nazi racism, nationalism, and colonialism which holds many lessons for humanity. It is a story of resistance! It is a struggle for unity and solidarity by individuals and entire communities to counter disaster and destruction.
My Story
I come from the Nazi Holocaust in France. Back in 1942, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler marked me down for death because I am Jewish. Hitler feared that if I lived, I could give birth to Jewish children who would seek vengeance.
Hitler and his movement didn’t merely hate Jews; they saw Jewish annihilation as a central historic goal.
When I was one year old, and still with my mother, the Nazis organized a massive raid in Paris which arrested thousands of Jews and imprisoning them in a sports arena called the Vélodrome d’Hiver (Vel d’Hiv).
The French authorities, in league with the German Nazis, had campaigned against Jewish immigrants and refugees, blaming them for the war that began in 1939, and its mounting hardships. The pro-Fascist government of Vichy passed harsh laws against Jews, even worse than the ones in Poland, from which my mother had fled.
In Poland, Jews such as my mother lived in ghettos, denied higher education and entry into professions. My mother belonged to the socialist Bund and worked for a socialist world. She escaped to France, which held the reputation of the 1789 revolution, with its promise of brotherhood, liberty, and equality. She found work in Paris and married. She joined the Jewish Union for Resistance and Mutual Aid. (The organization still exists and is sister to the United Jewish Peoples Order in Canada – UJPO). Continue reading Lessons from the Holocaust
There was a wonderful rally of several thousands in Toronto on Sun., Oct. 15, 2017 at which many leaders of the community called for unity against white supremacists and racism. 