Teaching The Holocaust To Our Children

My children came home from school on Monday with Yahrtzeit candles.  They told me they were supposed to light them for Yom Hashoah.  Bearing in mind that my daughters are five and my son is six, I treaded carefully and asked them if they knew why we had to light the candles?  My son said that it was to remember the biggest war there ever was.  While he was not mistaken, I felt compelled to take it to the next level and provide him with more detail.  I went as far as telling him that 6 million Jews, including 1.5 million children, were murdered.  I saw the horrified look on his face as he attempted to process this information.  Perhaps he is too young to understand, and even too young to know the truth.  So many children as young as mine were taken from their parents, sent to the ghettos, concentration camps, and gas chambers.  They were also too young to know of such horrors.  My children, as did thousands of others across Toronto, watched the flame of their Yom Hashoah candle burn for an entire day. 
 
In the face of the tragic events of the Holocaust, we continue to educate the future generations so that they never forget.  We are fortunate that we still have survivors in our midst to tell their painful stories and recount their experiences firsthand.  This week at Beth Sholom, our member, Martin Maxwell, shared his story with a room filled with Bar/Bat Mitzvah students and their families.  Martin touched everyone present with his testimonials.  He ended his talk by instructing us that he is a witness to what occurred, and that all those present are now witnesses as well.  In a few years, the survivors will all be gone.  We will be the ones left to tell their stories.
 
This summer, I too will be a witness.  I will be attending a mission to Poland with one hundred cantors from around the world.  This journey is a historical, emotional, and inspirational mission connecting us to 1,000 years of Jewish history in Poland.  My only other visit to Poland was in the spring of 2000 for only two days.  I was selected by the worldwide March of the Living to lead the memorial prayer (E-l Maleh Rachamim) at Auschwitz-Birkenau, alongside the presidents of Israel and Poland.  It was a humbling and deeply emotional experience to lead the thousands in attendance in a prayer for the martyrs.  I recall standing on the podium trying to maintain my composure while imagining the crimes against humanity that had taken place on that soil.  This summer’s mission will take me back to Auschwitz / Birkenau where the Cantors of the world will raise their voices together in song and prayer.  It will also include participation in the Krakow Jewish Culture Festival – the largest Jewish music festival in the world.  It will give me an opportunity to delve deeper into Poland’s Jewish life, music and culture that formed such a rich part of the Ashkenazi Jewish tradition we observe today. 
 
As the survivors of the Holocaust grow older and their memories of that dark chapter in human history grow faint, I feel a renewed sense of passion to educate the next generation.  This year I have encouraged more students than ever before to participate in the Holocaust twinning program.  The program enables bar/bat mitzvah students to research the background and history of a child their age that never lived to have their own bar/bat mitzvah.  Through educational research of the “twinned” child, the Bar/Bat youth learn about their twin, the Holocaust, and their own heritage.  I can’t think of a greater mitzvah than to pay tribute to another child posthumously – a child who was not as fortunate as they are.  Inspired by their interest, I have exchanged age appropriate books about the Holocaust with my students.  The more I read, the more I crave for knowledge.  I must also do my share to educate the next generation.

In a time when world leaders and respected scholars dare to publicly deny the validity of the Holocaust, we must know the facts to spread the truth.  When the United Nations sanction a conference against racism, giving heads of state from totalitarian regimes a platform to spew their racist agendas, we must respond with action.  When the government of Poland declares that Auschwitz runs the risk of closing due to a lack of funding from the governments of the world, we must stand proud and advocate that it is every nation’s duty to contribute and preserve this piece of history.  We owe it to our children. 

Cantor Eric Moses