Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Holocaust Remembrance Day


Central Theme Of Holocaust Day 2012: My Brother's Keeper -- Haaretz

Holocaust Remembrance Day begins at 8 P.M. Wednesday night at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.

Holocaust Remembrance Day begins at 8 P.M. Wednesday night at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, in the presence of President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The central theme of this year's commemoration is "My Brother's Keeper - Jewish Solidarity During the Holocaust."

Six survivors of the Holocaust will light the torches representing the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.

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My Comment: My father served in the Soviet Army during the Second World War, and while it was easy to make him talk about the war (especially after a few drinks .... and always with his war buddies) .... he and his war buddies always got silent whenever one of them would mention the time that they liberated a small Polish camp filled with Russian Slavs and Jews near the end of the war.

As a young child .... and later as an adult .... seeing 5-6 hardened decorated Soviet veterans of the Second World War going completely silent at the same instant when that war experience was mentioned .... the hard look on their faces when they sipped or gulped their vodka .... not even able to look at each other .... I have .... and I will .... never forget that. I know that my father and his comrades experienced some horrible things in that war .... and they always talked about it among themselves .... but that experience of liberating that camp is the only one that they could never talk about in depth .... even when they were totally stoned drunk.

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