International Holocaust Remembrance Day: Reminding Us Why It’s Time to Fight

Colorized photo of the entrance gate into Auschwitz that reads “arbeit macht frei.” The words “never again hashtag international holocaust remembrance day” are overlaid.

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. And this year, it feels especially important to acknowledge, given the rise of fascism around the world.

There are myriad resources about The Holocaust and ways to honor the victims. But they often seem distant to people who aren’t directly connected. So I thought I’d share a personal story, being an Ashkenazi Jew with a grandfather who narrowly escaped the demolition of his birth city by Hitler’s Nazis.

In 2017 I was giving a keynote lecture in Krakow, Poland. Home to the most infamous location of Nazi atrocities, Auschwitz-Birkenau. I knew it would be painful to visit, but I needed to take advantage of my time there and see it first hand.

Locals told me to plan a day for mental healing from trauma after my visit. I did. And they were right.

Standing in a cold concrete gas chamber, staring up at pipes and nozzles, and reflecting on makeshift graffiti from resisting prisoners, I felt paralyzed. Putting my hands on a weathered brick oven, analyzing the physics of the conveyor used to systematically feed human bodies into them, I could only weep.

Room made entirely of discolored concrete. The walls, floor, and ceiling are stained, scuffed, and cracked. There are small puddles on the ground. Two harsh lights are hanging from the ceiling, and pipes with nozzles line the upper rim of the walls.

At every turn there was something anticipated, but with a lack of appropriate magnitude. Everything I knew about what happened there was amplified by being there. Right there. Literally within my touch.

And there were many unexpected discoveries. One of them so profound it completely changed my perspective on the Holocaust. For reasons I had never expected. And it’s something few talk about.

The enormity of what happened in the Holocaust is well-known. What isn’t talked about is the normalization of it, as every day life for Nazis.

As our group walked the camp’s outer rim I noticed something peculiar. There were many large concrete pools of water. I asked our guide what they were. It was her answer that floored me.

Large concrete pool holding water in a grassy field. In the background is a barbed wire fence bordering the buildings in the camp.

She told me they were reservoirs for fire safety. That alone was not surprising. But the reason they had them was because it was required by their insurance provider.

Insurance.

The torture and murder of six million Jews was not just some horrific atrocity. It was considered every-day societal function for Nazis and their counterparts. Normalized and minimized as a simple order of business.

The Nazis spent massive amounts of money on the Holocaust. And they didn’t want to lose their “business assets” to a fire. So they purchased property insurance. And there was an insurance company somewhere who sold it to them.

I simply couldn’t process what I had learned. That the lives of six million people were reduced to the function of an industrial disassembly line.

On this day, take a moment to remember the Jews who lost not only their lives, but so much more. Know that it was far worse than any of us who weren’t there can imagine. And use that knowledge to fight hard to make sure this never happens again. Because it is bubbling up right now. Not only in America, but around the world.

#InternationalHolocaustRemembranceDay #Holocaust #Jews #Auschwitz #AuschwitzBirkenau #NeverAgain #Fascism

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Illustration of me with a content facial expression. I am wearing a wine colored beanie, teal glasses, and my long full beard is brown with gray edges. There is a dreary forest in the background.
I’m Mark Wyner, an activist, dad, husband, Designer, writer, public speaker, and Mastodon moderator. If you want me to write for you or speak at your event please say hello.