International Holocaust Remembrance Day
I just finished reading Into the Forest: A Holocaust Story of Survival, Triumph, and Love by Rebecca Frankel (St. Martin’s Press; ISBN-10: 1250267641). More accurately, I just finished listening to the unabridged audio version of this book, narrated by Natalie Pela.
It was an excellent, non-fiction book—well written with a compelling story and wonderful narrator—but it still took me many weeks to finish. The torture and persecutions leveled against the Polish Jews (and all other Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, and others deemed to be unworthy of the Nazi vision of a “perfect” Aryan race)—and, in particular, the Rabinowitz family (who are central to the narrative)—were so horrific that I constantly had to put the book down and walk away.
January 27—the anniversary of the liberation in 1945 of Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration/Death Camp—is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, as designated by the United Nations General Assembly.
On this annual day of commemoration, I also remember my father, Pvt. Jack Richardson, who died on January 27, 1997. He was a paratrooper during World War II, and his unit helped to liberate Wöbbelin Concentration Camp, which was a sub-camp of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp near Ludwigslust,
Germany. That was May 2, 1945.
I remember my father telling my sisters and me about liberating this concentration camp. When he and others from his unit came upon the gate and opened it, he said that the people inside thought it was another Nazi trick—they were reluctant to accept any kindness (like a bar of chocolate). He said that the people looked like bones with skin stretched over top. He said that it would have been impossible for the people of the town to not know what was happening; the U.S. Army made those townspeople visit the camp and bury the more than 1,000 dead.
I honor and remember the more than 6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust—as well as the millions ofothers who were victimized by the Nazis before and during WWII. I am glad that I read Into the Forest,
No matter how difficult it was, at times, to read. Every story deserves to be told.
At a time of great upheaval in our country and the world, I wonder if we have remembered enough—if we know enough—to stand up strongly against those who are determined to persecute others for no reason beyond the fact that those “others” are different in some way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C3%B6bbelin_concentration_camp
