Jews being put aboard a train heading to a death camp (photo from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum; used with permission; used in Diet Eman’s book, Things We Couldn’t Say
LTRJ Note: During this week, Holocaust Remembrance week, we sadly learned about a study conducted showing that Americans are increasingly becoming more and more ignorant of the reality of the Holocaust, especially among the younger generations. As the article below points out, it won’t be too long before there are no more first-hand witnesses who remember what happened during the Hitler regime and Hitler’s efforts with his “final solution” to wipe the Jewish people off the face of the earth. Our own two Holocaust-survivor authors—Anita Dittman and Diet Eman—are now in their 90s. Anita was a Jewish Christian and a young girl in Germany when Hitler came into power in her childhood country. She spent her teenage years under Hitler’s persecution. Anita survived the Holocaust as did Diet Eman (who was a Christian resistance worker in her twenties in Holland during the war). While Anita and Diet have done everything they can to tell their stories these past several decades, they won’t always be here.
Shockingly, as the article below reports, the public schools in most states (all but nine) in America are no longer mandated to teach students about the Holocaust.
A fifth of millennials aren’t sure if they’ve ever heard of the Holocaust.
Photo: Colleen Harrison/Albert Lea Tribune | https://www.albertleatribune.com/2015/04/trapped-in-a-nightmare/
By Courtney McGee
NBC News
In 1945, Sonia Klein walked out of Auschwitz. Every day of the 73 years since she has been haunted by the memory of what happened there, and the fate of the millions who never made it out of the Nazi death camps.
But Klein wonders, once she and the few survivors still alive are gone, who will be left to remember?
Diet Eman
“We are not here forever,” said Klein, now 92. “Most of us are up in years, and if we’re not going to tell what happened, who will?”
Klein’s worries are borne out by a comprehensive study of Holocaust awareness released Thursday, Holocaust Remembrance Day, which suggests that Americans are doing just the opposite. Click here to continue reading.
Related Articles:
Holocaust Remembrance – When Hitler Was in Power – by a Holocaust Survivor By Anita Dittman
Christians in Holland in 1941: “Should We Help Save the Jews?” (Obey God or Man) By Diet Eman
I have read those books by Anita Dittman and Diet Eman; they are excellent books which tell the whole truth, not only about the rage of the Nazis, but also the goodness and faithfulness of the LORD in the midst of such horror. Corrie ten Boom’s books (she wrote many) are also an excellent source of knowledge from someone who was actually there. As more and more Holocaust survivors grow older and die, it is more imperative than ever that we keep their writings before us at all times. I had a relative who fought in WW2 and who saw a concentration camp himself in the closing days of the war. The ovens were still smoking, bodies were piled like cordwood in trenches, and he never forgot that as long as he lived. He once met a Holocaust denier and immediately refuted his unfounded denials. As these people pass on, it is vitally important that we not allow the truth of the Holocaust to be forgotten or denied.
When people don’t know history, that is when it is bound to repeat itself. And the signs are everywhere.