# 292 – Holocaust Memorial Day

May 5, 2016

Holocaust Memorial Day

At 10.00 this morning, the sirens sounded for 2 minutes. I happened to be at a noisy coffee place downstairs, talking with someone. The delivery trucks were peeping nearby, backing into the supermarket delivery area.

Dogs were barking over there. A guy was starting his motorbike; the birds were fighting in a nest almost above us. But at 10.00, we stood, and all the noises stopped, including, it seems, the chirping of the birds.

We are not forced to stand in silence, but we do. Also cars on motorways, buses in high streets, tractors in fields and tanks on the borders. They stop, and drivers and passengers at least stand in silence, if not actually disembark and stand on the ground.

We are not forced to think back to the Holocaust, but most do. For most have some connection: I was there – I am alive because of someone’s survival – we are alive because we finally have a place we can call home, at least one place of refuge if and when needed.

The TV and radio stations focus for 24 hours on the Holocaust. Movies, documentaries, interviews.

 When people visit Israel, for whatever reason, business, sea, sun and/or gaiety, they need also to visit Yad Vashem in Jerusalem – The Holocaust Museum.

It’s sad, and perhaps over-the-top to say that this is the reason for Israel’s existence, but it is certainly a reminder of what these people have been through.

No question others have had their holocausts, natives of so many countries, Armenians, Cambodians, Russians, Biafrans and so on.

This is not a competition of suffering. This is specific and that’s ‘good enough for me’.

So I stand.

I am here because of or despite the fact that I have grandparents who died in Auschwitz, many family members who died more indirectly from Nazi persecution and others who survived. Like my antique glasses, after so many smashed, mine survived.

Stephen