History is filled with atrocities, but Holocaust Remembrance Day focuses on Jewish people
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On January 27th, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp in southern Poland, the world recognizes International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The day was chosen to recall the legacy of the Holocaust, a crime unique in human history, when Hitler's armies and their collaborators across Europe murdered over six million Jewish men, women, and children, with plans to annihilate the entire Jewish people.
Even growing up in Kentucky, I didn't know of a single Jewish family unaffected. My own family was nearly wiped out by Nazi gunmen and Ukrainian collaborators at Babi Yar, shot to death in a mass grave alongside more than 33,000 other Jews. Thank G-d, my grandmother and her family had escaped to the Holy Land.
On this day we also remember how the world, and particularly President Roosevelt's administration, shut the gates to Jewish refugees, with full knowledge of the horrors unfolding in Europe.
More:Teaching them not to forget: Why the Holocaust will always be part of my heritage
While human history is filled with crimes, atrocities and horrors, Holocaust Remembrance Day recalls the one-of-a-kind barbarity focused on the Jewish people.
The central call of the day is Never Again. Never Again will the world stand by when Jews are targeted for extermination. Never Again will antisemitism or hatred of Jews be allowed to rear its vicious head unanswered. Never Again will we fail to heed the call.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the foremost Jewish leader of the modern era, lost his own brother, uncle, grandmother and sister in law in the attempted destruction of the Jewish people. In 1962, famed writer Harvey Swados asked the Rebbe a piercing question.
“Could the Holocaust happen again?”
The Rebbe responded without hesitation. "Morgen in der fruh." Tomorrow Morning.
Holocaust Remembrance is not intended to recall a lesson of history, but a lesson of morality.
More:Kentucky first state to adopt Holocaust remembrance group's anti-Semitism definition
This past Monday, dozens gathered to hear the testimony of Holocaust Survivor and prominent Kentuckian John Rosenberg, as part of Holocaust Education and Remembrance Week at UK, led by the Chabad at UK Jewish Student Center.
Mr. Rosenberg shared the miraculous story of his family's survival, and the audience was called on to serve as witnesses themselves. Those of us who have had the privilege of hearing a Survivors Testimony, have the responsibility to share it with others and to carry the message of Never Again.
This message has never been so relevant. As the Ayatollah of Iran and his henchman in Hamas and around the world cry "from the river to the sea" calling for the death of the millions of Jews in Israel, we must respond: Never Again.
When we see popular celebrities like Kanye West praise Hitler and his actions on social media and national television we must respond: Never Again.
When we see near-daily attacks on religious Jews in New York, from the pages of the Times to violence on the streets of Brooklyn we must respond: Never Again.
The legacy of Never Again encourages us to confront injustice and bigotry anywhere, and against any people, and yet the focus of this day remains clear.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is specifically about remembering the memory of the six million and where unbridled antisemitism can lead. Because without our voices and our memory, a similar threat could rise tomorrow morning.
Rabbi Shlomo Litvin is the Chairman of the Kentucky Jewish Council. Known as the Clubhouse Rabbi, he is a national advocate combatting antisemitism.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Why Holocaust Remembrance Day should focus on Jewish people: Opinion
