I’d like to predicate this with a long-winded apology to anyone who interprets this question as an attempt to marginalize the pain of the Holocuast victims, but I don’t have the patience. That said:
Does anyone else have a problem with the fact that the Jewish community continues to memorialize the Holocaust employing logic that in doing so it will prevent similar events from happening again? It seems that whenever I see or read about a group memorializing this event, one of the prevalent themes is to “remember.” So long as this slaughter isn’t forgotten, it will never happen again. So long as we tell our story, never again will a tyrannical power subjugate a group of people?
Well, I’m all for that, but I’m also of the opinion that the resources used for this (this, read: constant retelling of the same story) could be put to better us through the execution of the promises that these people seem to be making. Retell the story of the Holocaust so it never happens again…Hey guess what? It was happening in the 70s in Uganda and Cambodia and who knows where else. It was happening in the 80s in the Middle East and South America. It was happening in the 90s in Kosovo. And it’s happening today in Africa and, to some extent, Palestinian camps.
Obviously I don’t have a problem with remembering, but how does a 12-year-old Congolese girl benefit from Americans and Europeans remembering a 50-year-old genocide?
“Hey aholes, "she’d say, "it’s happening in my front fking yard!”