Reflections on Yom Ha-Shoah

Strength and Remembrance

Reflections on Yom Ha-Shoah

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

On the eve of Passover in1943, a group of young men and women caged in the Warsaw Ghetto fired a shot whose sound still rings today and whose echo will reverberate for all eternity.  This group stood up to the Nazis, fighting them off for 30 days—longer than it took for all of Poland to fall to the Nazi invaders.  Ever since then, we have commemorated Yom Hashoah V’hag’vurah—the Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust and the Heroism—at this season.  In setting the exact day, it was decided to wait until after the holiday was over, so as not to mix celebration and tragedy.  And so it is that today we pause to remember.  Today we remember that the Angel of Death did not always pass over the houses of the Jewish People.

Yom Ha-Shoah reminds us of the Holocaust, the worst catastrophe that befell the Jewish People in modern times.  The Shoah is unprecedented in its fury and savagery.  It necessitated the invention of a new word:  Genocide.  Only a small number of its survivors still live; my mother is one of them.  Haunted by her memories, on this day especially she relives every moment of this horrific period in her life.  But a new generation is rising today, and all it knows of the Holocaust is what it has heard or read or seen in the movies, not what it lived through.  They need to be taught two things:  One—that the Holocaust really happened.  Two—that, contrary to the image shown on big or little screens, the Jews did not let themselves be led to the slaughter like sheep.  They fought back.  That’s why, in Israel, this day is called Yom Hashoah V’hag’vura (The Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust and Heroism).  Surviving another moment, another day, surviving with your humanity still intact inside you, took all the courage and strength you could muster.  If you did manage to somehow stay alive through the torture, the hunger, the sickness, the death marches and the random killings, beginning a new life was not easy.  That, and telling your story despite the pain and despite the disdain and disbelief with which it was received, was nothing short of heroism.

Anti-Semitism is the oldest hatred.  There have been times in history when it seemed to almost disappear.  There were times when Jews lived as inseparable parts of the larger community, contributing to trade, science and culture.  But the beast never died, it only slept, ready to be awakened at a moment’s notice.

Today, not even three-quarters of a century after the Holocaust, we see anti-Semitism on the rise again.  We see it in all its ugliness in Arab propaganda, in the halls of the United Nations, in all the large cities of Europe, on college campuses all over the United States, and even among high school students. 

To commemorate the dead is easy.  To make sure they did not die in vain is not so simple.

When we say, “Never again!” we have to mean it.  We have to make sure that the anti-Semites know we mean it.  There are indeed lessons to be learned from the Holocaust.  One of them is that we cannot rely only on God to save us, as God did 3000 years ago in Egypt.  Another is that we can no longer rely on the good graces of this royalty or that estate to protect and defend us.  We have to be strong ourselves.

Yes, we can rely on God—in the long run.  And we can rely on this or that super power—in the meanwhile.  But if there is one thing that I have learned from my parents’ experience in the Shoah, it is that I must be strong.  Physically strong, emotionally strong, spiritually strong.

That’s why I support a strong Israel.

That is also why I am a rabbi.

I have taken an oath—not only to remember, but also to teach the next generation:  Learn what it means to be Jewish, and learn to defend yourselves and your people!

That’s what Yom Hashoah V’hag’vurah means to me.

Am Yisrael Chai—the People of Israel lives!

Never forget that.

I never will—so help me God.

© 2016 by Boaz D. Heilman