Auschwitz Remembering the Horror 2005

CBC News in Review • March 2005 • Page 18

FocusThe anniversary ofan unfathomablehorror took placeon January 27,2005, as the worldremembered theliberation of theNazi death campknown asAuschwitz. Sixtyyears after Soviettroops liberatedthe camp, worldleaders met atAuschwitz to makea solemn vow toremember theHolocaust and toprevent futuregenocide. ThisNews in Reviewstory examines theanniversary of theliberation ofAuschwitz and theneed to rememberour history.

AUSCHWITZ: REMEMBERING THE HORRORIntroductionThe Red Army soldiers advanced deepinto Poland before coming across amassive concentration camp 60kilometres west of Krakow. As theymade their way into the camp theynoticed a sign over the gates that read“Work Shall Make You Free.” It was asnowy day and the air was filled with apungent stench, as the smoke stacksfrom the camp spewed their exhaustinto the winter sky. The soldiers did notknow that they had entered Auschwitz,a macabre factory of murder where theNazis sent people to be killed in gaschambers and incinerated in crematori-ums. The stench was the smell ofsmoldering flesh; the smoke was thebyproduct of the burning process. Soonthe soldiers realized the true nature ofAuschwitz as they encountered piles ofcorpses destined for incineration.

Then they found the survivors. Peoplewho looked like the living dead, emaci-ated beyond description, with skin thatseemed transparent. While the soldierswere witnessing a nightmare, they sooncame to realize that what they wereseeing could not compare to the grislynightmare that the survivors ofAuschwitz had lived. The soldiersdiscovered the horrific living conditionsof the prisoners, the railway platformwhere human cargo was delivered toeither forced labour or extermination,the gas chambers where mass murderswere committed, and the crematoriumswhere the bodies of the dead wereburned. In a bitter irony for the citizensof a faraway nation, they also found anarea of the camp that stored the belong-ings of the prisoners, both living anddead, called “Kanada.” Warehouses fullof shoes, suitcases, and other belong-

ings occupied Kanada, named after thecountry of Canada because it wasknown as the “land of plenty.” By thetime the Soviet troops had secured thecamp, 7 000 prisoners, most on theverge of death, had been accounted for.Later they discover that over a millionpeople had been murdered atAuschwitz.

On January 27, 2005, world leadersand camp survivors gathered atAuschwitz to commemorate the 60thanniversary of the liberation of the mostnotorious of the Nazi death camps. Itwas a day eerily similar to the one backin 1945 as snow fell and freezingtemperatures chilled those assembledthere. The ceremony was held at therailway platform where the prisonershad arrived in those dark days and wereselected for either work or death. Thesound of an approaching train, followedby a train whistle blowing, and thedoors of a rail car opening, signaled thestart of the ceremony over the soundsystem. Survivors of Auschwitz foundthe experience to be extremely emo-tional. Representatives from around theworld attended the ceremony, includingCanada’s Governor General AdrienneClarkson, U.S. Vice President DickCheney, and the presidents of Poland,Russia, and Germany. President MosheKatsav of Israel also attended theceremony and told those assembled,“The Holocaust is not only a tragedy ofthe Jewish people, it is a failure ofhumanity as a whole” (Reuters, January27, 2005). According to Katsav, theNazis were certainly to blame for theviolence they committed, but the failureof the Allies to come to the aid of thoseinterned at Auschwitz and other camps


DefinitionThe Terminology ofHorror – Thismodule introducesa number of termsused to describethis difficult histori-cal moment. Theseterms include: TheHolocaust, which isused to describethe period duringthe Second WorldWar when Hitler’sNazi regime mur-dered six millionEuropeans; concen-tration camps,which refers to thecamps establishedby the Hitler re-gime for the deten-tion and extermina-tion of Jews andothers; and geno-cide, which is thedeliberate massextermination of aparticular group ofpeople due to theirracial, religious orethnic origins.

was also an evil that could not beforgotten.

Auschwitz was an enormous concen-tration camp complex consisting ofthree main camps and a number ofsatellite camps. It started out as a placeto detain Polish dissidents and prisonersof war, but by 1942 it was expanded,and its mandate shifted from detentionto extermination. Three quarters of thepeople shipped to Auschwitz, mostlyEuropean Jews, were killed in the gaschambers shortly after arrival. The restwere sent into forced labour, living ingrossly inhumane conditions until theyeither died or were liberated in 1945.

The magnitude of the horror ofAuschwitz was part of a larger effort byNazi Germany to provide an answer towhat they called “the Jewish question.”From the rise of Hitler in the early1930s to the decline and fall of theThird Reich in the mid-1940s, the Nazisadministered a systemic effort to eradi-cate Jews from Germany and occupiedterritories. The elimination of the Jewsbecame an evil obsession for Hitler andhis cohorts; when discrimination anddeportation had failed to deal with the“problem,” the Nazis created factoriesfor killing the Jews—Auschwitz beingthe largest and most deadly. By the endof the Second World War, over sixmillion people were killed in an eraknown as the Holocaust. Auschwitz has

become the symbol of one of the dark-est chapters in human history—a timewhen a civilized nation surrendered itscivility to intolerance, prejudice, andgenocide. It was a time when peoplewere targeted for death based on theirracial background, religious beliefs,sexual orientation and mental status. Ofthe 1.5 million people shipped toAuschwitz, only 55 000 made it outalive. Over one million of the victimswere European Jews.

The anniversary of the liberation ofAuschwitz serves as a painful reminderof the nightmare of the Holocaust. Theworld allowed prejudice and discrimi-nation to rule, giving legitimacy tobrutal acts of violence against minoritygroups. The key refrain coming fromthose attending the anniversary was“REMEMBER!” World leaders tooknote of this, vowing one after the other,to not allow genocide ever to happenagain. As French President JacquesChirac noted at the ceremony, “Evil isembodied in this place, tearing at ourhearts and burning our consciences foreternity” (Reuters, January 27, 2005).Human dignity and sanctity mustforever remain at the forefront of themind of every citizen and every nationthat believes in the common good.Auschwitz is a symbol of what canhappen when this is not the case.

To Consider1. Describe what Russian soldiers found when they entered Auschwitz on

January 27, 1945.

2. What was “Kanada”? Explain the origins of the name.

3. What did Israeli President Katsav mean when he said that the Holocaustwas the “failure of humanity as a whole”?

4. Provide three examples from your reading that demonstrate howAuschwitz is a symbol of one of the darkest chapters in human history.

5. What can Canadians do to ensure that a horror such as the Holocaust cannever happen again?


AUSCHWITZ: REMEMBERING THE HORRORVideo Review

1. What did soldiers find when they entered the Auschwitz concentrationcamp in January 1945?

2. What steps did the Nazis take in their quest to deal with the “Jewishquestion”?First Solution: ________________________________________________________

Second Solution: _____________________________________________________

Third Solution: _______________________________________________________

Final Solution: _______________________________________________________3. Describe the selection process for prisoners upon arrival at the Auschwitz

concentration camp.

4. What was the translation of the sign over the entrance to the camp?

5. How many people died each day at Auschwitz? ________________________

6. Why did Nate Leipciger light a candle?

7. What other groups were murdered at Auschwitz?

8. What message did the president of Germany share with the world on theday of the anniversary?

9. What does Auschwitz mean to you? Explain.

10. Of what other current horrors are you aware?

11. Do you agree that it is necessary to ensure that the Holocaust is neverforgotten? Explain.

Watch the videocarefully andanswer the ques-tions.

DefinitionNazi refers to thosewho were membersof Hitler’s NationalSocialist GermanWorkers Party thatruled Germanyfrom 1933-45. It isalso used to de-scribe someonewith extreme racistor prejudicedviews.


AUSCHWITZ: REMEMBERING THE HORRORThe Death CampReview the information on Auschwitzbelow and complete the activity thatfollows.

The Auschwitz ComplexDescription: Three main camps andover 40 satellite camps; in addition tothe camp guards, Auschwitz was sur-rounded by electrified fences to preventescapeLocation: Near the town of Oswiecim;60 km west of Krakow, Poland

The Main CampsAuschwitz 1 – ConcentrationCamp• construction began in 1940• housed 400 000 prisoners during the

Nazi era• half of the prisoners died – causes of

death included starvation, execution,disease, torture, and complicationsfrom medical experiments

• the camp had two gas chambers and acrematorium

• Nazi doctors performed medicalexperiments on infants, twins, anddwarfs

• they also performed sterilizations,castrations, and hypothermia experi-ments on adults

• the camp was home to the famous“black wall” where prisoners wereroutinely executed by the SS(Schutzstaffel), an elite group ofsoldiers originally created as veryloyal bodyguards of Hitler. Later theSS expanded their duties to includeadministration of concentrationcamps.

Auschwitz 2 – The Extermina-tion Centre• also called Auschwitz-Birkeneau• construction began in 1941• had the largest prisoner population• close to 1 500 000 people entered

Auschwitz through the railway plat-form at Auschwitz 2

• 70 to 75 per cent of these people weresent directly to the gas chamber

• in 1944, over 400 000 Hungarian Jewswere transported to Auschwitz; almostall of them were sent straight to thegas chamber

• over one million of those murdered atAuschwitz 2 were Jews

• Poles, Roma, and Soviet prisoners ofwar were also killed at Auschwitz 2

• no record was kept regarding who waskilled

• the belongings of the victims werestored in warehouses in an area of thecamp called “Kanada” becauseCanada symbolized wealth to theprisoners; eventually these items wereshipped back to Germany

• after successful gassing experimentsat Auschwitz 1, a larger gas chamberwas built at Auschwitz 2 in 1941; thisgas chamber was replaced by an evenlarger one in 1942

• The SS felt that the new gas chamberwas insufficient for the number ofpeople slated for extermination

• four large crematorium buildings wereconstructed to handle the massivenumber of dead bodies that needed tobe cremated

Further ResearchTo learn moreabout the terribleconditions in thecamps, you mightvisit the followingWeb sites.U.S. HolocaustMuseum atwww.usshmm.org/holocaust,Museum of Toler-ance atwww.motlc.wiesenthal.com,For pictures ofAuschwitz seewww.remember.org/jacobs.


Auschwitz 3 – Forced LabourCamp• also called Buna or Monowitz• prisoners worked at the Buna syn-

thetic rubber works; a conglomerate ofI.G. Farben

• prisoners were tattooed with identifi-cation numbers on their left arm

• some prisoners worked at farms, coalmines, stone quarries, fisheries, andarmament factories in neighbouringsatellite camps

• those too sick or too weak to workwere sent to Auschwitz 2 to be gassedand cremated

The Liberation of Auschwitz• in January 1945, Soviet troops cap-

tured part of the eastern frontier andwere heading toward Auschwitz,prompting the Nazis to evacuatenearly 60 000 prisoners from the camp

• the prisoners were marched westtoward Germany

• 15 000 people died in what has cometo be known as the “Death March”

• Russian troops liberated Auschwitz onJanuary 27, 1945

• 7 000 people were still in the camp atthe time of the liberation

• 1.3 - 1.5 million people are believed tohave been sent to Auschwitz

• at least 1.1 million people were mur-dered there

Sources:Auschwitz-Birkeneau Memorial andMuseum, www.auschwitz.orgThe Holocaust Encyclopedia,www.ushmm.orgEncyclopedia of the Holocaust, NewYork: Macmillan.1990.

Quote“The masses of thepeople . . . willmore easily fallvictims to a big liethan to a smallone.” — AdolfHitler in MeinKampf

Do you agree ordisagree with thisquote? Explain.

ActivitiesConsider completing one of the following to deepen your understanding of thisterrible period.

1. Read a book based on the Holocaust, such as Night by Elie Wiesel, andreport back to your classmates.

2. Complete a Webquest based on the Holocaust and summarize your find-ings.

3. Consider a visit to the closest Holocaust museum and complete a reportbased on your experiences and reactions.

4. After completing some personal research, create a diary for a youngperson living at Auschwitz and offer five to 10 entries.

5. Visit the Victoria Holocaust and Remembrance and Education Society atwww.hopesite.ca/vhres-descrip.html and write a reflective commentary onyour experience. Be prepared to share your thoughts.

6. Consider contacting a local Jewish organization to see if they can send aresource person or study materials to your class.


AUSCHWITZ: REMEMBERING THE HORRORThe War Against the JewsAfter Adolph Hitler combined theoffices of Chancellor and President in1933 and declared himself Führer(leader) of Germany, he set about tryingto find a solution to the “Jewish ques-tion.” Hitler had been publicly declar-ing his anti-Semitic opinions sincejoining the Nazi Party in the early1920s. Now he was in a position to usethe power of his office to deal with theJews in any way he saw fit.

The First Solution: LegislationThe Nazi Party had beenunapologetically anti-Semitic sincetheir inception, so it was no surprisethat some of their earliest legislationwas directed against German Jews. Thefirst laws stripped Jews of jobs in thecountry’s civil service. Next, the Nazispassed the famous Nuremberg Laws,named after the party meeting wherethe laws were first proposed. TheNuremberg Laws effectively prohibitedmarriage between Jews and Germansand stripped the German Jews of theircitizenship. In 1938, legislation waspassed that brought about the dismissalof Jews from management jobs in theprivate sector. Jewish business ownerssaw their companies taken away fromthem and handed to Germans. By 1939,Jews were forced to carry identity cardsand were barred from public places likecinemas, schools, and sports facilities.

The Second Solution: EmigrationThe rule of the Nazis proved extremelydistressing for German Jews. In theearly years of Hitler’s reign, close to40 000 of Germany’s 523 000 Jewsemigrated. The Nazis openly encour-aged emigration while at the same timecollecting massive emigration taxes and

restricting the transfer of Jewish moneyto banks in other countries. Despite theharsh life created by the NurembergLaws, it wasn’t until Kristallnacht(“The Night of Broken Glass”), whereJews were murdered, assaulted, ar-rested, and saw their synagogues andbusinesses destroyed, that a massiveemigration push began. The push toleave Germany created a refugee crisislarge enough to prompt world leaders tomeet in Evian, France, to decide what todo. Thirty-two countries attended theEvian Conference, with only the Do-minican Republic agreeing to increasetheir refugee quota. Canada had theworst immigration record of any coun-try, accepting fewer than 5 000 Jewishrefugees between 1933 and 1945. Bythe start of the war, almost 300 000Jews had fled Germany, with the resttrapped in the Reich after the emigra-tion door was slammed shut by theNazis in 1941.

The Third Solution: Concentra-tion Camps and GhettosShortly after Hitler came to power, anumber of concentration camps wereconstructed to house anyone deemed tobe an enemy of the Nazi regime. Thesecamps were designed to hold largenumbers of prisoners. The prisonerslived in harsh conditions and experi-enced ruthless and indiscriminatepunishment at the hands of their cap-tors. The growth of the concentrationcamp system gained momentum oncethe war began in 1939, with new campsbeing built in the Nazi-occupied territo-ries. The concentration camp wouldserve as the gruesome predecessor ofthe Nazi death camps.

DefinitionAnti-semitismrefers to anti-Jewish beliefs andactivities. There arestill people whomaintain theseattitudes today.


The Nazis also sought to segregatethe Jewish population by establishingover 400 ghettos in towns and cities inthe occupied territories. Theghettoization process saw massivenumbers of Jewish people crammedinto confined areas of cities like War-saw. Approximately 450 000 peoplewere crowded into the Warsawghetto—an area of less than fourkilometres. Jews living in the ghettowere forced to wear identity badges orarm bands, and many were subject toforced labour by the Nazis. By 1943,Jews living in the Warsaw ghetto hadhad enough and staged a rebellion. TheNazis crushed the uprising and eventu-ally shipped most of the people living inthe ghetto to death camps.

The Final Solution: ExterminationLegislation, emigration, incarceration,and ghettoization did not satisfy theNazis. At the Wannsee Conference of1942, the culmination of close to 10years of Nazi policies and government-

sanctioned violence gave birth to “TheFinal Solution” to the “Jewish ques-tion.” At the conference, 15 top Naziofficials planned the murder of close to11 million European Jews. The victims,who were either under the rule of theNazis or who lived in nations the Nazisplanned on conquering, would be eithermurdered by mobile killing units calledthe Einsatzgruppen or shipped to deathcamps to be gassed and cremated. TheEinsatzgruppen learned their craft onthe battlefields of Russia. When theymoved into a town they would identifythe Jewish population, force them to digtheir own mass grave, and shoot them.The concentration camp system wasjoined by the death camps in the early1940s—the largest and most infamousbeing Auschwitz. The process marked theevolution of the persecution apparatus ofthe Nazi regime as over six million peoplewere killed by the Nazis. By far thelargest number of those killed were Jews.The Nazis managed to wipe out two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe.

Did you know . . .The Nazis did notinvent ghettos?Jews had beenforced to live inghettos for centu-ries in Europe.

ActivitySummarize the reading by completing the following chart.

The Evolution of the Final Solution

Anti-SemiticLegislation

Jewish Emigration

ConcentrationCamps and Ghettos

The Death Camps

Your Reaction tothe Above Events


AUSCHWITZ: REMEMBERING THE HORRORThe St. Louis AffairThe rule of the Nazis became too muchto bear for many German Jews. TheNuremberg Laws stripped the Jews oftheir civil rights, denied them access tocertain jobs, and made them scapegoatsfor Germany’s problems. The Jews ofGermany had become aliens in theirown country. The Nuremberg Lawshelped to create an incendiary atmo-sphere with violence the next likely stepin the process of discriminating againstthe Jews. Indeed, such was the caseafter a young Jewish man assassinatedan official at the German embassy inParis in early November 1938. Hitler’sMinister of Propaganda, JosephGoebbels, stirred the emotions of thenation against the Jews, calling theassassination a plot by “InternationalJewry” to attack the Third Reich and itsFührer, Adolph Hitler.

The powder keg of violence that waswaiting to explode unleashed its poweron November 9 and 10 in an episodecalled Kristallnacht or “The Night ofBroken Glass.” Mass violence targetingthe Jews was initiated in Germany,Austria, and the Sudetenland. In theend, 96 Jews were murdered, hundredswere injured, more than 1 000 syna-gogues were burned, 7 500 Jewishbusinesses were destroyed, cemeterieswere desecrated, schools were vandal-ized, and 30 000 Jews were sent toconcentration camps(www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org). Manyhistorians view Kristallnacht as the realbeginning of the Holocaust, with thedramatic shift from legislation and harass-ment to open destruction and violence.

Kristallnacht prompted many Ger-man Jews to emigrate from Nazi Ger-many. Nine-hundred and seven Jews

decided to pay a large sum of money tosecure the SS St. Louis for safe passagefrom Germany to Cuba. On May 13,1939, the vessel set sail from Europeacross the Atlantic Ocean toward thesmall Caribbean country. However, bythe time the ship arrived in Cuba, theimmigration door had been slammedshut as the Cubans turned the St. Louisaway. The ship sailed around Cuba forseveral days hoping that a refugee dealcould be negotiated. When no solutioncould be reached, the ship sailed northalong the eastern seaboard. U.S. immi-gration denied the St. Louis and herhuman cargo a place to make port. Theship went farther north, asking Canadafor safe haven. By this time, the worldwas well aware of the plight of theJewish passengers of the St. Louis andbegan referring to the journey of thoseon board as the “voyage of thedamned.” Despite pressure from promi-nent Canadians, the government ofMackenzie King refused to admit theJews aboard the St. Louis. In fact, whenKing’s immigration minister was askedhow many Jewish refugees Canadashould take in, he responded, “None istoo many.” This statement capturedCanada’s immigration policy during the1930s and the war years.

Despondent and dejected, the passen-gers on the St. Louis made their wayback to Europe. Tireless negotiationskept the refugees from having to returnto Germany. The passengers wereparceled out to Holland, France, GreatBritain, and Belgium in early June1939. However, with the start of theSecond World War in September, andthe subsequent conquest of Europe bythe Nazis, most of the passengers of the

Quote“We can and wemust honour boththose who losttheir lives andthose who sur-vived.” — PrimeMinister PaulMartin, TorontoStar, January 28,2005


ill-fated St. Louis found themselvesback in Hitler’s hands. By the end ofthe war, over half of the 907 passengershad been killed in Nazi death camps.

Most Canadians look back at theopportunity to save the Jewish refugeesonboard the St. Louis with great shame.Eventually the “none is too many”immigration policy was abandoned andnewcomers were welcomed into ourcountry. However, Canada’s abysmalimmigration record can be neatlysummarized in the following compari-son from Irving Abella and HaroldTroper’s book None is Too Many(Irving Abella and Harold Troper, Noneis Too Many: Canada and the Jews of

Europe, 1933-1948. Toronto: Lesterand Orpen Dennys, 1982): “During the12 years of Nazi terror, from 1933 to1945, while the United States acceptedmore than 200 000 Jewish refugees;Palestine, 125 000; embattled Britain,70 000; Argentina, 50 000; penuriousBrazil, 27 000; distant China, 25 000;tiny Bolivia and Chile, 14 000 each,Canada found room for fewer than5 000.”

Canadians need to remember not onlythe lessons of the Holocaust but the partour nation played in the deaths of thepassengers of the “voyage of thedamned”—the passengers of the SS St.Louis.

ArchivesTo learn moreabout the Holo-caust andAuschwitz from aCanadian perspec-tive visit the CBCArchives atwww.cbc.ca/ar-chives and view theaudio-visual clips inthe file entitled Lifeafter Auschwitz.

Questions1. What was Kristallnacht? What was the immediate cause of Kristallnacht?

Describe the devastation that the Jewish people suffered on November 9and 10, 1938.

2. Why do your think that Cuba, the United States, and Canada turned theSt. Louis away?

3. How might Canada make amends for the response to the plight of Jewishrefugees in 1939?

4. How might the St. Louis incident influence present and future immigra-tion policy in Canada?


AUSCHWITZ: REMEMBERING THE HORRORThe Bitterest Message We Can KnowThe Bitterest Message We CanKnowWe deliberately remember manythings.

We have Remembrance Day, forexample, to attempt to keep fresh theawesome costs in lives, pain, horror,and misery, the awesome costs of war,and to acknowledge each year theheroism and courage even as, witheach passing year, their numbersdwindle, of our veterans. The First andSecond World Wars were true cata-clysms of blood and death.

Millions went under the earth inthose conflicts, whole generations.Millions of others suffered amputa-tion and injury, psychological up-heaval that burned through the restof their days.

Part of the reason for such memori-als, the rituals of Remembrance Day,revisiting the sites of long-ago cam-paigns, retelling the stories of thosewars in movies, documentaries, andbooks is, in one part, to assist thosewho participated and also those whodid not in keeping alive a wholemixture of emotions. Anger that thewars occurred, sorrow, deep sorrowover so many who had been killed,outrage at the failures of politics anddiplomacy that partly were respon-sible for them, and, even more fer-vently, to remind each succeedinggeneration that without care andprovision, great evils can visit theearth.

Out of the darkest pit of the 20thcentury came its most memorable evil.We know it now as the Holocaust. Theprogrammed decision by Hitler andhis familiars to put the entire Jewishrace of Europe and the world, if it hadbeen successful, to the sword, toexterminate the Jewish people. Six

million Jews were stripped of theirrights, mocked, tormented, tortured,brutalized, man, woman, child, andinfant, there was no distinction, andfinally shipped by cattle cars to thegrim gas killing chambers ofAuschwitz and the camps.

For a few years in the early 1940s,evil itself sat on a throne in Germanyand hate sat by its side. The Holocaustwas the black hole of Christian andenlightenment morality, a step so faraway from the light that it frightensus, if we’re honest, even today to giveit serious meditation.

But meditate on it we must becausewhile it may have been the ugliestspectacle that human nature hasoffered up to itself and while itsexample has ravaged the conscienceof every person who has a conscience,the lessons of Auschwitz and theother camps are dwindling in theirforce, losing the power of their awfulhorror, and, in some cases, far toomany cases, are losing their primarymeaning. And with that forgetting,Cambodia and its two million dead,Rwanda and the slaughter of anothermillion, Darfur with its slaughterseven as I speak, sends back to theghosts of Auschwitz the bitterestmessage we can know, that, as weforget and diminish the memory ofthe Holocaust, we perpetuate andreplay in different times and differentcountries the most savage abandon-ment of our humanity that maderoom for Hitler’s racist apocalypse inthe first place.

We remember the Holocaust andmust keep on so doing, for to forget itis to invite its return.

Rex MurphyJanuary 26, 2005

CBC commentatorRex Murphymarked the anni-versary of theliberation ofAuschwitz with aneloquent essay onthe need to re-member. Read theessay and respondto the questionsthat follow.


1. Why does Rex Murphy think Remembrance Day is important?

2. What does Murphy mean when he says, “For a few years in the early1940s, evil itself sat on a throne in Germany and hate sat by its side”?

3. Why must we meditate on the horrors of Auschwitz? What evidence doesMurphy cite that suggests we are forgetting the Auschwitz message?

4. What warning does Murphy give at the end of his essay? What does hemean by this statement?

5. What can you personally do “to remember”?

6. Why do you think some people continue to deny—in the face of moun-tains of horrible evidence—that the Holocaust ever took place and statethat it is a Jewish fabrication?

7. What evidence is there that the world has not learned the lessons ofAuschwitz and that evil is alive and well in the modern world?

UpdateErnst Zundel, anotorious Holo-caust denier (aperson who claimsthe Holocaustnever happened)and accused whitesupremacist, wasdeported fromCanada to hisnative Germany inMarch 2005, wherehe was immediatelyarrested andcharged withdenying the Holo-caust and incitinghatred.


AUSCHWITZ: REMEMBERING THE HORRORActivity“But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as to neither forget the thingsthat your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days ofyour life; make them known to your children and your children’s children . . .”— Deuteronomy 4:9

It is important for us to never forget the lessons of the Holocaust. The preced-ing quote from the Hebrew scriptures indicates how the theme of remem-brance has been with the Jewish people for thousands of years. Now more thanever the need to remember is critical as the Holocaust survivors move towardold age. In the not too distant future, those who lived through the Holocaustwill no longer be with us, and history alone will be the final witness to thisperiod. What if we forget the lessons of the Holocaust? What if the Holocaustbecomes a surreal, distant memory? How will we remember to be vigilant andto avoid surrendering to the hate and prejudice that once led to so much de-struction?

Your TaskWork with a partner to create a Holocaust memorial. Your memorial shouldinclude:

• a clear and descriptive title• a story from the Holocaust• a paragraph on why we need to remember the Holocaust• a poem or song lyrics that call on us to remember• three pictures

Format: poster, booklet, PowerPoint presentation, or Web page or any otherformat your creativity suggests

Feel free to use your creativity to make this memorial as powerful as possible.Make it a true testament to the tragedy of the Holocaust and the need to neverforget the lessons that the Holocaust has taught us.

Planning Notes

Quote“The messagetoday (is) ‘No moreAuschwitz.’ But theworld has learnednothing so far—you see they arefighting and killingeach other every-where in theworld.” — Holo-caust survivorFranciszek Jozefiak,Toronto Star,January 28, 2005

Documents

Auschwitz Remembering the Horror 2005