80th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. We need to keep talking about this.
This year marks 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the date anniversary being the 28th of January. If you were lucky enough to catch the Holocaust Memorial programme by the BBC in January, it was extremely moving. I would urge anyone to watch it and understand the importance of lighting a candle and putting it in your window.
To commemorate is to acknowledge the importance and the impact an event had on the world, especially on you. It allows you to reflect and think about how events of the past, may be relevant to today.
The Holocaust and the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau is something we are taught in school. It is encouraged in German schools for children to visit sights, like Auschwitz, whilst they study the Holocaust and Nazi history. The realisation of what humans are capable of doing to each other is something that too many of us are disconnected from.
Personally, it has been a desire of mine to go to Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau. My husband and I will be visiting the camps in the future. This is not something we have thought about lightly, it is also not something we have decided on a whim. I am anxious and reverent about going and I will share my thoughts about having paid respect to the millions of exterminated peoples. I will not share pictures out of respect for those who perished there. If you have visited a concentration camp of any genocide, I would like to hear about your experience and what that meant to you.
Recently, I watched A Real Pain by Jesse Eisenberg, a film revolving around the experience of going to a concentration camp. It gave me a deeper understanding of the generational pain that comes with this part of history, I would urge people to watch it.
The Holocaust is not the only genocide that must be acknowledged during Holocaust memorial and genocides in Cambodia, Srebrenica, Rwanda, Bosnia, and acts of genocide committed by Daesh against Yazidis (and more) are also acknowledge. This kind of extermination did not stop in the 40s, it continued.
Some may believe that the events of the past may not be relevant today. But I believe differently, I believe we are at a breaking point and crossroads in history where we can either learn from the past or let atrocities continue. We cannot forget to commemorate this anniversary and the Holocaust. What happened in the 1930s and 40s, has happened since and could happen in the future.
In the 1920s and 30s, people once saw a moustached man as an idiot, a joke, and a maverick. He and gained power when people were at their lowest and looking for someone to blame. He gave permission for the most right-wing and fascist individuals to exterminate a whole race of people they thought were ‘the enemy’. He then set up manufacturing plants to do just that. This can happen again.
Everyone needs to remember what happened.