Every year the Holocaust is one year further in the past and every year more Holocaust survivors leave this world. Keeping their stories and memories alive is surely one of the biggest challenges in the years ahead. Last week’s IJN editorial urged every single one of us to “turn our attention to our history”, because if we do not do what Holocaust survivors did for us, “Kristallnacht shall fade away”.
We’ve accepted the call to not allow today, November 9, to “pass silently like any other date on the calendar”.
With the help of those dedicated to preserving the memory of the Holocaust, first person accounts of that fateful night 73 years ago are available online. We must warn you: Rabbi Gerd Jacob Wiener’s eyewitness testimony is painful. Decades after the night his life changed forever, Wiener’s pain is just as raw, his grief just as deep. But watch. And hear. Soon it will be our job to re-tell the stories.
On this date we must remember what three years ago we termed “the beginning of the end“. For it was Kristallnacht that green-lighted the Nazis’ horrific plans; it was Kristallnacht that validated their prejudicial and violent nature.
Please visit the US Holocaust Memorial website for further eyewitness testimonies.
