Never Again

Holocaust Remembrance Day: April 11th

Only a few years ago I used to have a real job. And by real, I mean one I got paid for in $$$. Five days a week I would drive to a public school on the outskirts of Detroit for an audience of 20-30 beloved 4th, 5th, or 6th graders.  Audience, because I truly felt like a performer; trying to pour my passion, real or pretend, into whatever lesson we were on.  I taught reading, writing, math, science, and social studies/history.  My concentration in college was biology, so I was surprised when I found myself intrigued by history more than any other subject.  The first year I taught sixth grade the curriculum suggested a unit on WWII.  What started out as a curiosity became an obsession.  Not because I enjoy war (not at all), but because I was confronted with so many of my own fears, and the people I met along my research proved to be so real, so strong, so vulnerable, and their messages so relevant to our world today.  I dug into my grandparent's old newspapers and discovered how the war was personal to them.  I wore my grandmother's W.A.V.E.S. uniform to school and held my grandfather's purple heart.  But my most treasured experience was meeting holocaust survivor, Martin Lowenberg.  When I called the Holocaust Memorial Center of Farmington Hills looking for someone to speak to my 6th graders, they gave me Mr. Lowenberg's number.  He was a sweet elderly man with a thick German accent.  He was respectful and honest. I fell in love with him instantly. 
I remember meeting him for the first time; the students well-prepared and anxious, waiting in their seats, peering out the window as we watched him slowly approach the school, his visual aids neatly squared-away in his briefcase, an American flag pinned to the lapel of his suit coat, his yamika beneath a fedora.
I am happy to report that my students had never been as quiet as they were when he spoke.  I thought of all the hatred he had endured, all the absolute hell... and marveled at how gently he spoke to the children.  He was protective of them; he put things on their level.  He did not want them to have nightmares, he told me. He did not tell them that his younger twin brothers had been taken to Auschwitz and experimented on by the demented Dr. Mengele- (the horrific details are not even in the "Martin Lowenberg" link above, because it was information he had recently discovered through research and shared with me-absolutely unthinkable what gruesome acts were taken upon precious innocent children).  He did not tell them the graphic horrors he endured.  But he told them stories of being bullied and abused in  his childhood, and meanness they could imagine.  He told them about the power of hate and the power of love, and to never begin to hate someone.  He said to never use the word hate. He encouraged them to accept all religions and cultures.  He warned about the dangers of a large and powerful government and the perils of propaganda.... He told them America was the best country in the world. 
Martin Lowenberg came to visit my class for the next five years.  I was always humbled that after all the large conferences and assemblies he spoke to, he made the effort to visit my small classroom.  I made excuses to fit him in the curriculum.  That's how important I thought it was for children to hear from an actual survivor of this horrific event in history while there are still survivors left.  It's hard to believe that anyone would deny this atrocity with all the found mass graves and engineered facilities for work and death...

Remember the holocaust.

Remember the National Socialist German Worker's Party (NAZI).

Remember the power of the media and that deception may hide in charisma. 

Remember the desperation brought about by a bottomed-out economy. 

Remember how the seeds of hatred brought a forest of evil and agony to over 6 million Jews and 6 million disabled, homosexual, black, gypsy, P.O.W. and political dissidents. 

REMEMBER.
 These things are not so far away.

Remember those defenseless, those hopeful, those ordinary men and women who were slaughtered in cold-blood.
  Remember those who sacrificed everything in order to save their neighbors.
Remember that we are all capable of evil, and that we are all capable of good.

Mr. Lowenberg used to end each of his presentations/discussions with my classes by explaining that he shares his story so that it won't be repeated, and talked about the genocide that occurs in regions of the world today.

What better way to remember the holocaust of yesterday than by perhaps donating to those trying to help the victims of genocide today?