Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day, which marks the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army in 1945.
Seventeen years ago today, I was in Poland witnessing the 60th anniversary of the liberation as part of the White House staff and American delegation led by the vice president. The Nobel Laureate and Auschwitz survivor Elie Wiesel was part of the delegation, as was Congressman Tom Lantos, another survivor. I will never forget the experience. I was profoundly impacted by it, and believe the Holocaust was the greatest evil perpetrated in the course of human history. The Second World War is the deadliest event in human history. Understanding how the Shoa happened is among the most important things for future generations to understand, so that the words “NEVER AGAIN” have meaning.
These are some of the essays that I have written about the Holocaust and the rise of antisemitism in America since starting The Warning. I hope that you will read (or re-read) them over the weekend.
May their memories be a blessing.
Steve you honor humanity by remembering The SHOAH…
“NEVER AGAIN “ the children in Germany Today are taught about the Holocaust
And it is required that they physically
Go to Auschwitz’s nightmare concentration extermination camp!!!
Makes me reflect on how shameful
America is burning books … refusing to educate children here about what we did to the enslaved blacks and continue to do
Also what horror we inflicted on the indigenous tribes and continue to do
AMERICA WE MUST EDUCATE and
Remember the Holocaust and FACISM
Wake Up it’s alive LOVE don’t hate!
When will we truthfully take Responsibility
Thank you for this memorial post, Mr. Schmidt. My late mother was a Nazi refugee, as her parents snuck across the border from Austria into Switzerland right before the Swiss sealed the border so as to prevent any more "refugees" (translation: Jews) from entering their country. The small family remained there until 1950, when they moved to Canada, as my late grandfather (for whom I am named) believe that Jews no longer had a future in Europe. The rest of their family, who had apparently hoped to ride out the Nazi tide, ended up in the death camps.