Holocaust Remembrance Day
By: Jennifer Finder
Issue date: 5/2/07 Section: Opinion
In observing Yom Hashoah, I was reminded of a few important aspects of life I wish to forget. I was again reminded of the terrible cruelty of which humans are capable.
Now don't get me wrong, I get along well with people and am actually a friendly person. But people are capable of great evils- the greatest of which may be inaction in the face of injustice. My grandparents are all Holocaust survivors and I would not be here had the rest of the world not decided to stop the Nazi's from invading nations completing their final solution.
As a grandchild of survivors and as a person who has learned from the past, the words "never again" inspire hope that people will never stand by and allow genocide to happen. After watching Hotel Rwanda, this hope was shattered. The entire world had images of what was going on, knew what had happened in the past and still did almost nothing. This inaction killed huge numbers of people, and only after the fact did the world say that the mass killings in Rwanda were genocide and action should have been taken.
Today we have the same issue in a new place- the Darfur region of Sudan. Millions have been driven from their homes and thousands die each month, and yet the world is silently watching. Yom Hashoah is a reminder of how easy it is for injustices to occur and how it is everyone's responsibility to stop them.
For me, phrases like "never again" and "not on my watch" mean the world will come in and protect people from the constant fear my grandparents felt and the constant sense of loss they continue to feel. For me, they cannot be empty phrases. So here I am saying no genocide. Not on my watch. Not in Darfur, not in Chechnya, not Rwanda, not anywhere.
For more information on the Holocaust and other modern genocides, please visit www.ushmm.org.
Jennifer Finder is a sophomore animal and avian sciences major. She can be reached at jfinder@mail.umd.edu.
Now don't get me wrong, I get along well with people and am actually a friendly person. But people are capable of great evils- the greatest of which may be inaction in the face of injustice. My grandparents are all Holocaust survivors and I would not be here had the rest of the world not decided to stop the Nazi's from invading nations completing their final solution.
As a grandchild of survivors and as a person who has learned from the past, the words "never again" inspire hope that people will never stand by and allow genocide to happen. After watching Hotel Rwanda, this hope was shattered. The entire world had images of what was going on, knew what had happened in the past and still did almost nothing. This inaction killed huge numbers of people, and only after the fact did the world say that the mass killings in Rwanda were genocide and action should have been taken.
Today we have the same issue in a new place- the Darfur region of Sudan. Millions have been driven from their homes and thousands die each month, and yet the world is silently watching. Yom Hashoah is a reminder of how easy it is for injustices to occur and how it is everyone's responsibility to stop them.
For me, phrases like "never again" and "not on my watch" mean the world will come in and protect people from the constant fear my grandparents felt and the constant sense of loss they continue to feel. For me, they cannot be empty phrases. So here I am saying no genocide. Not on my watch. Not in Darfur, not in Chechnya, not Rwanda, not anywhere.
For more information on the Holocaust and other modern genocides, please visit www.ushmm.org.
Jennifer Finder is a sophomore animal and avian sciences major. She can be reached at jfinder@mail.umd.edu.
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