April 20, 2009

This afternoon in Ramat Toshavim cemetery as we mourned the anniversary of the death of Amos, I could not help but contrast the ages on the stones to the ages of those killed in the Holocaust. We had been talking about the Holocaust all day, about my aunt who died at the age of 32, about numerous relatives, about millions of children, about innumerable individuals. We also talked about the unborn. Had not 6 million been killed then, it was announced today, there would be 32 million Jews. Here in Ramat Toshavim, most of the people died of natural causes, except those killed in the wars, or terrorists. There are old graves that seem so isolated from the experience of such a massive catastrophe But Holocaust Day has just begun and I’m already sick of it. “Move forward,” I want to say, and “Make sure the memory is not used for manipulation, rationalization, explanation, and move on.”