Yom Hashoah, Day of Remembrance
Posted on April 11, 2010 at 2:14 pm
Today, all over the world, people of all faiths and cultures are observing Yom Hashoah, the annual Day of Remembrance for those who perished in the Holocaust. Yom is Hebrew for “Day” and Hashoah means “of Catasrophe” or “of Destruction.” At the United States Holocaust Museum people sign up to read aloud the names of those who were killed.
All families should pass on to the children an understanding of the Holocaust and the painful realization that our hopes that the sickening inhumanity of what transpired, the systemic effort to exterminate groups based on religion, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, would itself be enough to prevent future genocide, have not been realized. Good films to begin these discussions include Defiance, the story of a partisan and resistance movement led by three brothers; Conspiracy
I tried to explain some of this to our children during the service of worship today. I started with EMTs and Firefighters as a model for rescuers. Then I asked if we had anyone in the congregation who had been a Liberator of one of the Concentration Camps – but no one put up their hand (I thought we had 2 or 3 – but they simply may not have been in church today). Of course, I then had to try to explain what Concentration Camps were.
It may be a long time before I learn if any of them got the point I was trying to make. But I have learned kids are more attuned than we give them credit. I think it is important that our kids hear about this and learn what we can teach them. That is far better than keeping silent and simply hoping they never have to deal with something like this.