Remembering the Holocaust: We Jews are the targets once again - opinion

• Published date: 07 April 2024
• Author: ANDOR GROSZ
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

On this day, Sunday, March 19, 1944, with the German units Gestapo arrival. Along with them came the 100-or-so-men-strong Eichmann commandos, with the task to annihilate – together with the state apparatus led by governor Miklós Horthy – the more than 800,000 Hungarian Jews. The Holocaust in Hungary neither began in 1944 nor with the Nazi occupation. On March 19, 1944, my father had been suffering in the forced labor service for a long time in the Úrkút manganese mine, together with hundreds of his fellow Jews. Thousands more labored in the Bor copper mine in Serbia and elsewhere in inhumane conditions, while tens of thousands of even more unfortunate ones were driven to the Eastern Front and had been perishing for three years without weapons, proper equipment and clothing

All of this was a consequence of antisemitism – also incited by the state – the culmination of a process during which Jewish citizens, or citizens considered Jewish according to the law, were gradually deprived of their rights, job opportunities, property, free movement, or even the opportunity to keep in touch with their family members.There are things that can be forgiven, amended, and even forgotten, but what happened to us during the Shoah can neither be forgiven nor made right, and especially cannot be forgotten.

We, who were not yet born then, we have the duty even after several generations to recall what happened, to put into words the pain of all those who suffered the atrocities. The pain of those into whose arms and souls the numbers of humiliation stayed engraved forever.

The importance of remembering the past

There is a sobering quote from Holocaust survivor, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel from Máramaros-Sighet that underscores the importance of the remembrance. He said: "If we forget, the dead will be killed a second time."

We must not let the Holocaust, or any other heinous act committed against our people, escape our consciousness.Remembrance is about the past, but it speaks to the present and shapes the future. We must do everything we can to ensure that each new generation faces the heritage of the past clearly and recognizes its significance in the present. It is especially important to keep this in mind because the social processing of the whole tragedy of the Shoah in Hungary – just like in most of the affected countries – is still pending.As long as the majority of society not only knows, but also feels that the Holocaust is not only a tragedy of the Jews...