Holocaust Remembrance Day - January 27, 2022

A Message from Mr. Ott,

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. On this day in 1945, Soviet troops liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in German-occupied Poland. This camp was the largest in a massive system of concentration camps designed to systematically murder Jewish people, and others, in the most horrifying and industrial manner ever imagined by human beings. Over 1.3 million human beings were systematically murdered in this one complex of camps alone; men, women, children, simply for being human beings, for being Jewish, for being a communist, for being Roma, for being "other".

Though this event seems distant, the ideas that drove ordinary people to commit the most heinous and evil acts against other human beings are sadly with us to this day. Antisemitism, racism, bigotry, prejudice, and fascistic and authoritarian ideas and mindsets still find life in our communities, in our society, in our world.

We remember this brutality because we need to because it is imperative. We remember this moment in history so that we find the courage to stand up for others who have less power; to call out racism, prejudice, bigotry, and antisemitism where we see it. We remember because we must act because we must bring light into this world desperately in need of it.

We remember and act because what happened in Germany so long ago, can and has happened elsewhere in our world. It can happen anywhere. I leave you with the words of Martin Niemöller, a German Lutheran pastor who witnessed the rise and fall of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. His words speak to the cowardice of ordinary Germans who refused to stand up and speak up against the growing evil in their society.

"First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me

And there was no one left

To speak out for me"

Light up the darkness amazing people!