Record View: Why We Must Stand Up to Evil
2005-01-28
Daily Record; Glasgow (UK)



THE Holocaust is not only a tragedy for the Jewish people - it is a failure of humanity.
Those words from Israeli President Moshe Katsa, marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, sum up what the Holocaust meant all those years ago and still means today.

But they can't describe the horror of it. No words can.

A government made it illegal for certain people to exist.

The Nazis wiped out three-quarters of the Jews who lived in Europe, including 1.5million children.

Those who weren't gassed were tortured, starved and experimented on.

One million Jews were murdered at Auschwitz, as well as 75,000 Poles, 18,000 gypsies and 15,000 Russian prisoners of war.

Jews were rounded up from all over Europe and taken there to be slaughtered. Disabled people joined them. Homosexuals, writers, artists, Jehovah's Witnesses and political opponents were targeted too.

Just 7000 prisoners were liberated from Auschwitz, each one of them a shadow of life when they were found.

Sixty years on, it is still hard to imagine. The evil of the Nazis was the greatest crime against humanity in history.

It can never be forgotten.

It is our shame that a generation of young people do not know about it. Some of them even think Adolf Hitler was a mythical figure.

We can never forget - and we must never let it happen again.

Yet in Cambodia, Rwanda and Yugoslavia acts of genocide have gone on. Even now, it is happening in Darfur in Sudan.

The pain of the Holocaust will never be soothed but it should be a spur for us to fight for the rights of people of every creed, colour and culture to live in freedom.

Remember Auschwitz and remember the Holocaust, not just today but forever.

And remember ... all that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.

Copyright 2005, YellowBrix, Inc.

http://www.ushmm.org/newsfeed/Auschwitz/viewstory.php?storyid=2142

http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/auschwitz/

Let the candle that is lit at the Holocaust memorial museum never go out..let no one forget.