Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Holocaust Remembrance Day is a day that has been set aside for remembering the victims of the Holocaust and for reminding Americans of what can happen to civilized people when bigotry, hatred and indifference reign. The United States Holocaust Memorial Council, created by act of Congress in 1980, was mandated to lead the nation in civic commemorations and to encourage appropriate Remembrance observances throughout the country. Observances and Remembrance activities can occur during the week of Remembrance that runs from the Sunday before through the Sunday after the actual date.
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The Holocaust is not merely a story of destruction and loss; it is a story of an apathetic world and a few rare individuals of extraordinary courage. It is a remarkable story of the human spirit and the life that flourished before the Holocaust, struggled during its darkest hours, and ultimately prevailed as survivors rebuilt their lives.
Ultimately the death toll reached about:
Six million Jews
2-3 million Soviet POWs
1.8-2 million Poles
220,000–500,000 Roma
200,000–250,000 Disabled
80,000–200,000 Freemasons
5,000–15,000 Gay men
2,500–5,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses
A monument honoring the gay and lesbian victims of the Holocaust is to be built in Meir Garden in Tel Aviv.
A quarter of a million homosexuals were persecuted during the Holocaust, and tens of thousands were murdered because the Nazi Party believed their sexual preference to be deviant. In the concentration camps in which they were imprisoned, gay men were forced to wear a pink triangle while lesbian women wore a black patch.
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The monument is to be the first in Israel to commemorate these victims, though four of its kind exist worldwide, in Sydney, Copenhagen, Berlin, and Amsterdam. It has been designed as an iron triangle, on which the victims’ names are to be inscribed.
I am simply overwhelmed whenever I read or hear about the Holocaust. It is indeed one of the deepest, darkest stains on the history of humankind.
