Resist Tyranny.

"To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects."
Margaret Thatcher
In a world growing ever more dark, the little light from the memorah shines brightly. I think about that with each Hanukkah. How brave the Jewish family above was to set their Hanukkah lights in the window, the menorah staring into the face of the Nazi flag. How easy to have 'hidden the lights," knowing the danger they were facing.
We may never know this family's name.
But we know where their family laid.

It is G-d Who Has Made Us What We Are

We Shall Not Forget

Shalom:
I well remember the day I first heard the word Holocaust, what it was about.

My family was living in Dorchester at the time, I was ten years old, in 5th grade. Our teacher was in a meeting, so we had a Sub the day. I wish I could remember his name, but I remember him. He was tall, very tall and thin builded. A thick mane of blonde curly hair that brushed his shoulders. His eyes blues and he reminded me of the pictures of Jesus hanging on the wall of my Sunday School classroom. A small group of my classmates and formed a circle and he told us about his past. He was first generation german-american, his family came here after the war.
He told us about that this day was a very special day for his people.
"Your people? Who are your people?"
"Jewish."
"Is today a holiday?"
No, it is a day we remember fellow jews who were killed for just being Jewish.
It was then he told us about the Holocaust. This small group of brown faces around him were all history bluffs, so we listen, taking it all in.
The reign of horror over Germany, over her people and the people of the world. Hitler wanted to rule the world. He wanted to created the perfect race of Man. A Pure Race. The Aryan Race. That would mean, if Hitler had sucessed, a global Holocaust.

And most of us would not be here today.
The teacher had lost 3/4 of his family in the death camps. His mother still had nightmares of being dragged out of her bed by Nazi soldiers, the family being herded off to awaiting trains.
He then told us about Slavery, about how our people were brought here in chains, treated like pack animals, whipped into submission and worked from morning to night, worked into their graves. How crude man can be to his fellow man.
But also how kind. This is when I first learned about people like Corrie ten Boom.
Years later, I learned that the Jews weren't the only victims of the Holocaust. Jehovah's Witnesses also were send to the death camp because of their religion and because they would not join the Nazi Party. Homosexuals, the mentily ill and the disabled were also send away as were others.
Today, we remember those taken from us. The lives we live honour them. We are their victory dance on Hitler's grave. Every Jewish child born, every boy or girl who becomes a Son or Daughter of the Commandments, every couple that enters the Huppah is a victory dance.

For we are still standing.
By the Will of G_D, we won.

Yom HaShoah-Holocaust Remembrance Day Part One

Boker Tov:

This evening at Sunset begins Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah).
The word Holocaust comes from the Greek "whole" and "burnt." In Hebrew it is The Shoah השואה, HaShoah, "catastrophe"; in Yiddish חורבן, Churben or Hurban, from the Hebrew for "destruction.

On this day we remember the genocide of six million European Jews during World War II. The Holocaust was the plan of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi Germany led by Adolf Hilter throughout Nazi occupied territory. Two thirds of German Jews perished under Hitler's boot.  Men, women and children led into showers that were really gas chambers. Men herded into fields, made to dig mass graves,  made to stand in them and then shot to death. Human beings who's only crime was being the Sons and Daughters of Abraham were starved to death, all to fulfil Hitler's Final Solution.
However, there were others who also perish during the Holocaust. There were those Christians, like Corrie Ten Boone and her family who hid a Jewish family, only to have their hiding place betrayed. Her story is told in the book and the movie The Hiding Place.
 Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, those with disabilities, Polish or Soviet civilians. Those with a political or religious point of view that differ with Hitler's Final Solution. This raises the numbers of the honoured dead to about 11 to 17 million.

On this day, we often hear the chant "Never Again." Never again will we allow such a horror to happen again. That today, there are people of good will who will stand up to the next Hitler who even dares try such again.
And yet, Hitler's spirit still walks amoung. There are still people in Germany, in Iran, even here in the Until States that do not believe the Holocaust didn't even occur. There are people who don't believe Hitler went far enough, even some willing to pick up where Hitler left off.
Just last month, a rabbi and two of his children were gun down just because they were Jewish.
The spirit of Hilter.
As long as there is the held belief that there are those amoung us, who have no worth, who add nothing to The Collective, that all they do is eat, sleep and breath, who's world view not only counters our own, but seems to threat it. As long as we blame a group for the ruining of our nation, our values and morals, as long as we hold the belief that we as a nation, as the world community believe we were be better off without (   ), Hitler still walks amoung us.