Remembering the Six Million

I had an opportunity to go to the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem last summer when I was there on business and it was one of the most moving experiences in my life.

Words cannot do justice to what one feels while walking through the museum and the grounds.

This very day, 83 years ago, Hitler committed suicide. Normally, I'd add "thank goodness," but goodness obviously had little to do with this act. Nonetheless, the unravelling of Naziism began in earnest on this day, and it should be marked.

I once toured Theresienstadt. The depressing wonder is that this place, which once served as a sort of Potemkin village in order to show the International Red Cross how "well treated" the Jews really were, is occupied again. Things are that tough in the Czech Republic that there's actually a waiting list to get into these buildings again. And it is esoecially chilling in this crummy little town, where even the dogs seem to have lost their voices in shame and the dust smacks up against your sunglasses from a bitter little breeze in the deserted town square, to be around when the local cops do a brisk shift change. The jackboots tucked into service dress trousers, the machine pistols, the general grottiness of the place, none of it will make even a casual traveler feel reassured about the future of this world of ours.

Some of those shoes may well have belonged to my grandmother's family. She left, they stayed.

"...the unravelling of Naziism."

I wish this was true, Cathar. Unfortunately, neo-Nazism is alive and well in many parts of the world today. In some places (Croatia), very obvious, in other places, not so obvious, but present nonetheless.

Miss Martta, the present crew of yobbos who are termed "neo-Naziis" are, I'm sure, no more capable of forming a political conspiracy than they are of tying a proper bow tie. They are hapless thugs, and while they are thugs, their menace pales before that of Islamists.

(I remember once that I had to explain to a passel of American National Socialists that their guy, their would-be 'Fuhrer,' George Lincoln Rockwell, had in fact served on OUR side during WWII, and supposedly capably, as a Navy pilot hunting German subs. These guys, for all their love of swastikas and ability to sing the "Horst Wessel Lied," really are numbskulls, as apt to trip over their own truncheons as to use them in street riots. And don't get me started on the younger Nazi set's love of 'speed metal'.....)

The are "thugs" who celebrate Hitler's birthday and those living in what was once Yugoslavia who celebrate the life and birthday of Ante Pavelic of Ustashi fame. Do I take them seriously? Maybe not individually, but collectively, they can be dangerous, yes.

And to my family too, J. Perlstein. My grandfather got out of Krakow. Most of his family, including his father and brothers, did not. One brother, whom I knew when I was a child, lived through Auschwitz and made it to the US.
Years later he committed suicide. The memories at the camp (he was just 16) were too much.

And to my family too, J. Perlstein. My grandfather got out of Krakow. Most of his family, including his father and brothers, did not. One brother, whom I knew when I was a child, lived through Auschwitz and made it to the US.
Years later he committed suicide. The memories at the camp (he was just 16) were too much.

And to my family too, J. Perlstein. My grandfather got out of Krakow. Most of his family, including his father and brothers, did not. One brother, whom I knew when I was a child, lived through Auschwitz and made it to the US.
Years later he committed suicide. The memories at the camp (he was just 16) were too much.

And to my family too, J. Perlstein. My grandfather got out of Krakow. Most of his family, including his father and brothers, did not. One brother, whom I knew when I was a child, lived through Auschwitz and made it to the US.
Years later he committed suicide. The memories at the camp (he was just 16) were too much.

Cathar,

It would be nice if you called the Czech town by its true name, i.e., Terezin, rather than by its German name. Also, some people (if not most) would say that things in the Czech Republic are not as tough as they are in the US. I have lived in both countries. Take a trip outside of the US metropolitan areas.

Cathar,

It would be nice if you called the Czech town by its true name, i.e., Terezin, rather than by its German name. Also, some people (if not most) would say that things in the Czech Republic are not as tough as they are in the US. I have lived in both countries. Take a trip outside of the US metropolitan areas.

The tour buses announce they're going to Theresienstadt, not Terezin, jaromer. Even at the museum, both the film and the exhibits use the German spelling of the place. Perhaps that's because under the Germans the horrors mounted there daily. In any case, that is the name which prevails, upon which ignominy is heaped. Also, the Austro-Hungarian Empire used German as one of its official languages, and even when Gavrilo Prinzip was imprisoned there (amazingly, he was released some years later, no matter the misery his gunshots had unleashed on the world) the place was called by its administrators Theresienstadt. Terezin may be its "true" name but it's rarely used in practice. (How many know a certain other town as "Oswiecim?")

Nor do I much care how hard or sybaritic things may be in the Czech Republic compared to here in the US. I remain aghast that anyone lives in such a place, that is all.

And I assure you, I'm reasonably well traveled outside America's urban areas, though why you think this is relevant is beyond me.

Eleven candles were lit at the B'nai Keshet memorial service by The Montclair Clergy Association for the eleven million men, women and children who died in the Holocaust. In addition to the six million Jews, there were five million people of other religions who were murdered.

And many more millions were displaced from their homes by the Nazis.

And today May 1st is Yom Hashoah.

I thought that Gavrilo Prinzip - the assassin of Archduke Ferdinand - died in prison either during the war or after.

He died in prison in 1918 of TB.