Holocaust remembrance day in the UK was January 27th and this year also marked the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. That's a pretty big deal. But here in the UK we had our chief news network, the BBC asking the question on Twitter 'Is the time coming to lay the Holocaust to rest?' The answer? No it isn't.
When do we ever lay history to rest? That's what makes it history. The systematic killing of over 11 million people; Jews, homosexuals, communists, disabled and anyone who dared to speak against Hitler is a dark blemish on history that needs to be dissected, mourned and remembered. I can't fathom this question being asked about any other time in history. Can you?
I wasn't strolling mournfully round the Killing Fields of Cambodia thinking to myself: 'jeez, they should really get over this genocide thing. It was ages ago.' Because that's fucking ridiculous and incredibly disrespectful and offensive. We need to remember these horrible times in history so that they are not repeated, but also so we can see how far we've moved forward as humans and be proud of that.
I wanted to post something on my Facebook wall last Tuesday to mark the day. But I didn't. Facebook can be a bit of a scary place for voicing political or religious views. However, that had never stopped me before. What is making me more cautious now is that there is a faint whiff of intolerance on Facebook that I started to smell last summer, with the heightened tensions between Israel and Palestine and has gotten only stronger since the recent terrorist attack in Paris.
Instead of posting I downloaded Night by Elie Weisel and promised myself I'd read it on my trip to Scotland the following day. I understand that this book is compulsory reading in many American schools, but it wasn't in mine. In fact, all we ever learned about WWII was how the Americans saved everyone. My knowledge of the Holocaust was gained through synagogue and from the mouths of survivors.
Every Holocaust Remembrance day in the USA, which takes place in the Spring, my family and I would go to a special service and there would always be a speaker, a survivor. This particular year I'm remembering there was a violinist. I wish I could recall his name, but I remember his face; so kind, but very intense, like his thoughts were trying to escape through his eyes. He told us how he'd been taken to Bergen-Belsen with his family, but only he survived. After several months in the camp he was approached by a guard one night who asked him what he used to do. 'I am a violinist' he replied. A few nights later he was summoned by this same guard and transported by car to a building a few miles away and asked to wait with three other men.
After waiting for what seemed like an eternity the guard called all of the men into a room and there sat Hitler. Just feet away from him, he cold smell his cologne. The men were lined up and the first man was presented with a violin. Hitler asked him to play something. The first man began playing something slow and melodic, I believe it was Handel. Hitler shook his head and the guard lifted his gun and shot the man in the face. His body fell the the floor like a sack of turnips and the blood began to pool at the other men's feet. The guard pried the violin out of the dead man's hands and passed it to the next in line. The second man artempted to play, but his hands were shaking so severely that he too was shot directly in the face by the guard in a mater of minutes.
By this time, the man telling the story had tears rolling down his cheeks and his gaze was focused somewhere very far away, out of that room and into another life. Finally, he continued, it was his turn to play and to his horror, his mind went blank. The blood-soaked violin was placed in his hands but he couldn't remember what to do with it. His beloved instrument felt leaden and foreign in his hands. The guard shouted at him and before he even understood what was happening; his hands, totally independently began to play The Blue Danube.
In the room where I was sat listening to this story, the man hummed a bit for us then, so we could recognize the tune. A lot of people chuckled, because this was such a simple melody and was used so often in cartoons that even I understood and laughed. Hitler let the man play on for what felt to him like such a long time, but it couldn't have been because the song wasn't over. He called over the guard and whispered something to him. The man with the violin closed his eyes and began to pray. The guard unholstered his pistol again, strode over to him-the man telling the story, the man with the possessed fingers, the man who had watched the execution of his wife and child, the man who then heard the guard shoot the man standing next to him, spraying his own face with blood and brain matter. He didn't look, he didn't stop, he just kept playing.
I will never forget that story. I will never forget that man and no, I don't think it's time that his story was laid to rest. When I turned that last page in Night it never occurred to me that Elie's story was over and we should all just let it go. He's still alive, you know. As are thousands of other survivors who tell their stories and share their pain and their lives with us. How dare anyone say that we should put their stories to rest? That we should not acknowledge their horrific experiences with somber ceremony. But more importantly that we should not celebrate the miraculous fact that they survived. Against all odds and against all reason they survived.
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