The temperature was minus seventeen degrees, the snow was constantly billowing around us and we hadn’t slept properly for six nights- but that didn’t stop us from mustering all of the reserves of strength we had left to face this last hurdle. We had been there before, had faced our deepest fears and were actually on the way to the airport to catch a flight home. But we felt that, since it was a special night, we couldn’t pass up this unique opportunity that had been presented to us.
I believe that it was almost exactly at midnight when we entered the unheated cabin and gathered together in the centre of it. The atmosphere had changed so much since coming here only two days earlier. It seemed much more haunting now. Maybe it was all too real, too impossible, too hard to comprehend.
We put a candle down in the middle of a concrete slab that was protruding from the floor and lit it. We all stared intently at the newly formed flame as it battled the extreme elements and struggled to stay alight. In so many ways that flame spoke to us all – the flame of the Jewish people that was so nearly wiped out, yet somehow survived and remained alight.
That night we lit that candle and we sang, for the ones who could no longer, for the ones who would never do what we had done and who would never feel what we had felt. That night we sang for generations. Looking back I can honestly say that it was the most inspiring first night of Chanukah I had ever had, for we were spending it in a barracks at Auschwitz.
This ability that we have to connect to previous generations, to vicariously perform acts that, in some way, hold special significance, is a beautiful way to reach into the past and deliver it to the present. It is our way to remember the things that we cannot see but create the vivid memories of in our lives. We owe it to previous generations to remember when they cannot do this for themselves. To keep alive their memory and have it burning inside of us.
But memory alone is not enough. The power of memory comes when it shapes who we are and what we stand for moving forward.
The theme for this Holocaust Memorial Day is Don’t Stand By and even more than 70 years later this theme is still as significant, important and appropriate as it always has been. As Martin Niemoller famously said “First they came for the Communists and I did not speak out— because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Social Democrats and I did not speak out— because I was not a Social Democrat. Then they came for the Trade Unionists and I did not speak out— because I was not a Trade Unionists. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out”.
The sad reality is that often we don’t stand up and be counted until it is too late, where we shrug our shoulders and say what a shame it all is. Being firm and deliberate in our beliefs and upholding justice and integrity is a basic tenant of Judaism and it is our responsibility to speak out over prejudice and inequality wherever they may be found. This was thoroughly forgotten during the Holocaust and is what allowed the unimaginable to take place. It is the lesson of every man, woman and child, irrespective of age, ability or religious expression. We can all stand up for what we believe in.
70 years ago the greatest darkness did all it could to try to extinguish the light of good. As we memorialise the victims, let us all take some of their light into our hearts. Let that light be a force for good for ourselves and the whole world.
by Rabbi Jonny Ross
