ONE DAY, ONE DAY

     So sings Matisyahu in his hit song and so do we say with a longing tone and a deep breath, knowing what history and mankind have wrought,  what seems never to die, especially when economies stutter and tremble and the world roils in unhappiness. People look for scapegoats for their woes and we wonder when will that one day ever arrive.
     I open this post today with the words of a Holocaust survivor, a man whose words I heard yesterday on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, 2017. As the ceremony opened at Yad Vashem in Israel, and as the marchers in Europe waited for the next day to march from Auschwitz to Birkenau, in remembrance and in triumph, I sat and listened to these words from a 96 year old survivor who lives amongst us.
     "Auschwitz is the darkest place in the world. It is the territory of the devil. There he succeeded in using his power to make millions of people suffer. He murdered them, burned their bodies, and left their ashes there to be trampled by others."
     We entered Auschwitz while on a pilgrimage to Eastern Europe to learn more and see for our own eyes the places where my people had lived for centuries, where our families had lived and even flourished, and we walked the place, both Auschwitz proper and the deadly rows at Birkenau, trod upon the bones and ashes around the destroyed crematoria for there is no avoiding them. We, too, walked down those train tracks, entered the gates underneath Arbeit Macht Frei, gazed with horror at the size of the camps, and wondered how was it possible to do this? How did Germany expect to get away with this? And why did so many of the population in the countries under Nazi control acquiesce to this, watch as their neighbors were slaughtered, as they were marched through the streets to their deaths, as they heard the shots at Baba Yar, as the government opened local centers for clothing, shoes, furniture, household goods and clearly marked these centers as "relocation centers" where the goods of those same murdered Jews were up for such a bargain price!!!
    And yet today we read of the increase of anti Semitic events here in our own country. We read of the violence extending to our children, be they in university or just walking home from elementary and high school. It seems the hate never dies and we are so careless, all of us, both Jew and non Jew alike, as we allow this to flourish once more. But even as Marine Le Pen advances to the runoff on May 7, in France, the political parties of France across the spectrum from right to left are urging unity to defeat her and her words of hate. Would that it indeed be so. But even if she is defeated, will the hate and the undercurrents be destroyed? No, for we are lacking, it seems in understanding the dark sides of ourselves, of our human nature,  and until we do so, there will forever hang over us these palls and clouds of hate and murder and forever we will hear the cries of mothers bereft of their children, of the millions of children slaughtered, at the aged grandparents going to a death they did not deserve and at the anguish writ upon the faces of the sons and fathers and brothers who could not protect their families even as they are murdered. 
     Some people forget or try to forget. Some people would like to see these days repeat themselves. I can tell you personally that a walk in Auschwitz will return a different person for the place is overwhelming, both physically and emotionally and one is undone after walking this camp of horror.
     So today, give over a minute or two of your time if that is all you can find - remember those whom mankind destroyed. Remember all those dead piled up, denied the last rites of funerals of honor. And see on line as the triumphant youth groups walk through these gates today, wrapped in the flag of Israel, as the remaining representatives of aged survivors, their children and grandchildren walk through these gates again. Hear the tears and see the tears and feel with your heart.
     I close with the words of the speaker I heard yesterday.
     "Auschwitz is the holist place on earth. It is the place where Heaven opened its gates in order to greet millions of holy souls. Only their ashes remained behind to be scattered by the winds, so we could breathe them in and become as one with the past. We must try to feel and imagine in our very bones as if we were there ourselves."
     AM YISROEL CHAI - THE NATION OF ISRAEL LIVES AND WILL DO SO     FOREVER

        REMEMBER GDANK ZICHOR