Do you know what today is?
It’s Thursday. It’s January 27th. Know what else it is? It’s Holocaust Remembrance Day.
First of all, like I do every year, I’m sharing this unbelievable song by my friend Eli Schwebel. This song will forever give me chills.
The chorus asks the question “What will become of all the memories?
Are they to scatter with the dust in the breeze?
Who will stand before the world knowing what to say when the very last survivor fades away?”
I think we have a bigger problem than that.
We say never again, and growing up, I truly believed that. It could never happen again. Not in our civilized world.
Today, I don’t believe it at all.
Perhaps those two issues are connected. People’s memories are so short. They forgot so quickly what happened just 80 years ago! And that is exactly why it could happen again.
I am not even only talking about the world. I’m talking about us as well. The Jews.
I was brought up in a home with grandparents who were survivors. I was taught to never forget. I was taught to never ever buy a German product. I was told not even to go on a trip to Poland despite its importance because on this trip, we will indirectly and directly support the Polish government.
I don’t own a single German product and I never will.
“Cmon, Hillel. It’s a new Germany.”
Really? A new Germany? Have you done some research about the rate of antisemitism in Europe? New Germany, yeah right. Sorry if that offends you. You’re gonna have to get over it.
I didn’t forget. My parents didn’t forget. My family didn’t forget. But people did. Jews did. And perhaps that’s exactly why so many Jews are happy to buy German products and are quick to criticize me when I say that I’d never. Because the memories of what happened are already so foreign.
Then there are those who say to me “But in that case you can’t buy products from anywhere. Even America turned the Jews away.”
You’re right. But comparing anyone or anything to the German genocide is dishonest and disgraceful. Using the Holocaust to promote your political agenda is demented and twisted.
I won’t buy Ford. Henry Ford was a flaming antisemite. But yes, I am fully aware that the world has and will turn against us the first chance they’ll get. They’ll call it some other name. Today that name is Anti Zionism.
Are you not seeing the attacks in the streets of Brooklyn and the UK? Do you not watch the news and the videos online about the antisemitic slurs uttered in the streets of Paris and Manhattan?
Back then, Hitler blamed the Jews for the bad economy. Today, the fundamentalist Muslim world with the support of the liberal progressives hate Jews not because of the economy but because we are home and we are strong. They can’t handle it.
Back then, it was “Get out of Europe and go to Palestine (Israel)”. Today, it’s “Get out of Israel and go back to Europe.”
If you think it can’t happen again because today, we have social media and the world would never let it happen again, need I remind you that in many Muslim countries, they have ethnically cleansed the country of Jews? Need I remind you that it is completely acceptable to throw someone off a roof or drag them through the streets because of their sexual orientation?
Need I remind you how much Jew hated there is just miles from here amongst our enemies? Listen to them. They don’t want a state. They want no Israel. They want dead Jews. Read their charter for crying out loud!
There is some good news though.
The words never again are true. It can’t happen again. Want to know why? Not because of social media or because the world is now moral and would never let it happen again. They would and they are.
It won’t happen again because now we can make sure it doesn’t. We are home after thousands of years. We can protect ourselves and we will make sure it never happens again.
So today, we refresh our memory. We remember how my grandmother was put on the selection line in Auschwitz and she was given the chance to live. Her cousin wasn’t so lucky and she was put on the death line. My grandmother risked her life, ran to the second line and pulled her cousin to her line. She saved her life.
Today, we remember the unfathomable number of Jews who were slaughtered in the most inhumane way possible.
Today we remember the monsters who the world viewed as the most civilized society of their time.
It’s so easy to forget. After all, Mercedes, BMW, and Volkswagen make some pretty great cars. But let’s not forget who designed the original Volkswagen bug. Adolph Hitler.
Let’s not forget that Hugo Boss designed the Nazi’s uniforms.
Let’s not forget, even though the world has forgotten long ago.
It will not happen again because we won’t let it.
Listen to this songs. It’ll give you chills.
