I am on a journey. The year is 1986. I am half way through the privilege of living in and touring Europe for two years, ages 16 to 18. I had already spent a fair amount of time in Bavaria, a region in modern unified Germany, dating to 555 A.D.
This journey during the summer of my 17th year I invested a large portion of a day at Dachau Concentration Camp. My mother and I travelled to this hell hole, where during World War Two an estimated 188,000 Jews were contained, subjected to ungodly bodily experiments and inhumane labor practices. A compound where close to 32,000 humans were slaughtered via gas chambers then disposed of in incinerator’s.
I vividly remember being sick to my stomach as I walked into the chambers where human life was gassed. Humans were led into the chambers in large groups, naked, told they were getting much needed showers. Holding back vomit, I viewed the pictures of pyramids of human flesh, where they had gasped their final breaths, climbing on one another, attempting to get higher, gasping for air.
The following summer, touring my best friend from the States around Europe, I invested another day at Dachau. I couldn’t lead him through Europe without him seeing this hell hole, which had been created and thrived in the land of Beethoven and Bach, during our Grandparents generation. Just like my personal struggles the previous summer, I remember his working to contain vomit during his visit to Dachau.
By God’s Grace, our grandparents’ generation liberated the European continent from this evil a mere 42 years prior to our visit.
Last week, April 12th, 2018 was Holocaust Remembrance Day, 73 years since liberation and 31 years since my last visit to Dachau. A report was released last week showing that “66 % of American millennials and 41 % of American adults could not explain the significance of Auschwitz (another concentration camp) and that 41 % of millennials believe that fewer than 2 million Jewish people were killed during the Holocaust.” https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/66-percent-of-us-millennials-dont-know-what-auschwitz-was.
We are now three generations removed from the liberation of Europe, from this insanity, and most of today’s American’s don’t know the history or the sacrifice of our immediate ancestors. This is problematic and requires action. What can we do?
We must not simply grieve about the loss of this historical knowledge, and the inevitable risk it creates for each of us.
It is not enough to simply get angry about the lack of education, bureaucracies which might be exacerbating this trend and textbooks which are not accurate.
Like our responsibility for our individual immediate and extended families’ financial well-being, we are also responsible for our individual immediate and extended families’ educational well-being, as both responsibilities impact our individual future generations.
As a parent, grandparent or perhaps even a great-grandparent; as an aunt or an uncle, here are three easy things you can do. First, educate yourself. We live in the greatest generation in history as it relates to the capability to invest time in one’s own education. Second, rather than planning a family vacation to Disney World or to go on a cruise, plan a trip to Washington, DC. Among the many sites which every American should visit, be sure to visit the interactive Holocaust Museum. Be sure to invest several hours in the exhibit “Propaganda” on the lower level. In that exhibit, your heirs will learn the concept of “fake news” is not new. It was used in the 20th Century very effectively, to the demise of over 6 million human lives. Third, find ways to incorporate historical education into your extended families’ routine. In my humble opinion, the dividends your individual family will receive from such investments will exceed the dividends received from that trip to Disney World.
Here’s wishing you a productive week.
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