Russia approached from one side and the rest of the allies, including the USA from the other in 1945. We had to destroy the power that one nation had taken for itself to destroy humanity. We had to crush it.

But millions died before the Red Army reached a concentration camp in Poland.

My parents’ generation were called the greatest generation because they were the people who stared evil in the eye and declared, “This far and no farther.”

They stared down the Nazi threat to humanity and democracy. They crushed it.

But they were too late for many.

Theirs was also a generation that included many who stood on the other side of the issue. They and their parents became purveyors of injustice, cruelty, and iniquity, and perpetrated the evil that the rest of the world arose to oppose.

There is much to remember.

There is much upon which to reflect.

On January 27, of every year, the international community observes a memorial aligning with the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp by the Red Army in 1945. 

We relive a horror in our minds in hopes that it will strengthen our resolve to never allow it again.

It has been Eighty years.

United Nations Statement

The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme was established by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 60/7, with a simple and stark aim: to “mobilize civil society for Holocaust remembrance and education, in order to help to prevent future acts of genocide”. The Programme has established a global network of partners and developed versatile initiatives including educational resources, professional development programmes, panel discussions and exhibitions. The Outreach Programme is an expression of the United Nations’ commitment to countering hatred, and to building a world in which everyone can live with dignity and in peace.

Millions of innocent people lost their lives because of their ethnic, cultural, religious, or national heritage. The great majority were Jews, but many others as well.

Eighty years is not enough time to put this behind us, especially with the rise and threats further rising out of hatred, racism. antisemitism, and bigotry in the world.

Our memories are not too long. They are far too short.

“The International Holocaust Remembrance Day, or the International Day in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, is an international memorial day on 27 January that commemorates the victims of the Holocaust, which resulted in the genocide of one-third of the Jewish people along with countless numbers of individuals of other minority groups, by Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945: an attempt to implement its “Final Solution” to the Jewish question.” — Wikipedia”

Naziism and Fascism were so atrocious that we delude ourselves into thinking that there are no people like that today. 

We say we know better. 

We say we have learned our lessons.

We are smarter and more sophisticated than the nation that previously produced some of history’s greatest geniuses of art, philosophy, music, and science.

And yet, we are too smart.

Do the victims of Bashar-al-Assad believe that?

We can take a windshield tour of the world looking down from the space shuttle and point, here, there, here, over there all day. The trajectory of our gaze will land upon some land or lands dominated by dictators and bullies.

Some are powerful. Some are “wannabes.”

Many want to be.

Racial supremacy, fanatical nationalism, religious persecution, totalitarianism, intimidation, and inequity all disguise themselves as noble movements and sentiments in the beginning.

We compose soundtracks and make banners to which we march toward the destruction of societies, institutions, and restraints that keep up from generating another Holocaust.

Or we sleep, as we did through several major genocides, including Rwanda

Photo) — Reuters — Candles mark the railway tracks leading to the Auschwitz camp during the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the camp. Poland, January 27, 2005.

Those candles are flickering.

Voices are going silent.

Recently, we honored the memory of Jimmy Carter. He held out to 100 as a peacemaker and advocate of the rights of people, but it came time to go. He passed the torch to us, to cry out for human rights. Have we renewed our commitment?

Evil can rise!

Evil does rise.

Evil is rising.

We cannot counter evil merely by assuming that our superior intelligence, corporate experience, or vocal leadership will take care of it. We have to take turns sleeping because someone must be awake at all times.

This act of remembering is no exercise in sentimentality nor futility. It is not merely an historical game of trivia. If we do not remember, we will not survive. Not all of us.