“MAMA, DON'T LOOK”
Holocaust Remembrance Day
Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. Of all the memories, I have been gutted by one more than others.
At Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, there is a Children’s Memorial dedicated to the approximately 1.5 million Jewish children Hitler murdered. The Nazis realized the most effective way to eliminate a people is to kill its children.
How did they do that?
They hanged them.
Parents sent to Nazi death camps had their children ripped from their arms upon arrival, then put into a special section marked for death.
Hysterical mothers, deranged with grief, would rush manically to do the what they could, if not to save them, at least to be with them in their final moments.
Walking onto the gallows, the children knew that they were facing death. They looked over the crowd to glance the face of their mothers one last time. And many of them reportedly said, “Mama, don’t look.”
Mama, don’t look.
That is my most painful remembrance today.
May their memory be a blessing and a reminder to us all.
And Gaza is now our glaring example that never again does not necessarily mean, never again. I many times wonder why this lesson was beat down so hard by those who had experienced historical trauma. Our nation must address historical trauma and its dangers.
Thank You for this reminder … The people sent to El Salvador could very well face the same fate … Death … First the dehumanization … then the lack of due process … and finally the cruelty … It’s the same pattern … Thank you again for this!