Never Forget

Hello Everyone,

I am taking a break today from my normal journal entries to add my 2 cents about yesterday´s news. It was the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

World leaders and survivors gathered at the camp to remember the victims and remember what happened and to remind everyone that we must never forget.

I saw pictures of survivors in attendance, some crying. I don´t think that while they were in the camps that they imagined that would live another 60 years to witness the anniversary, let alone just get out of the camps alive.

This morning some shit monkey left a swastika mark in front of the elevator of my apartment on the floor. My roommate told me that he has Jewish faith in his family. I didn´t know that. I am hoping that whoever did this did it to be stupid, and not out of hate. It´s a sick thing to do. Either way, it was sad to have to wake up to see him mopping the floor of a hateful sign before the neighbors left for the day. I thought it was nice of him to take the innitiative to clean it up. He coulda just left it for the janitor.

Of course the government of Germany is now making public appologies for what happened. And they are also paying reparations. It´s a step in the right direction of course, because you can´t change the past, and you can´t bring back the dead.

But I can´t help but thinking about the survivors: The government robs your house, kills your family, imprisons you and strips you of your dignity, and throws you back out into the world to fend for yourself. And all you get is a lousy check after 60 years ? Oh, and maybe a public appology on certain occasions? Yeah, at least they are getting something. But still, it´s just NOT enough. Nothing can ever be enough for the survivors.

Austria signed an agreement 3 years ago to pay some money to the survivors. It is just getting out to them. What a joke. Survivors aren´t getting any younger. And it´s only 1000€. People can sue companies because they slipped and got injured on a wet floor and get thousands and thousands of dollars.

And people can argue however they want. What about the other people affected by the war? You can´t pay everyone for their suffering. True. But you also can´t deny that the Holocaust was targeted at certain groups of people, mainy Jews. And the government had lists with SPECIFIC names of people that they were looking to kill. They weren´t accidentally killed by agunshot. 

And these people are STILL living.  I think that the German government should definitely pay the families.

There was a debate of whether the United States should pay the survivors. I don´t think so, because the United States didn´t do it. I think that the responsible governments should take full responsibility.

I couldn't help feeling sad yesterday because there is still so much hate in the wold. What about the war between the Bosians and Serbs ? These people will probably never receive any appology money from their governments probably because I imagine that their countries simply can´t afford to pay the money. Who knows ? I am just making a guess. I wonder if their government would even appologize? I don´t know much about that war except that there was a lot of ethnic cleansing.

I honestly don´t think that hate will ever be erased from this world. There will always be good and evil. But I think that we are slowly making progress.

Anyways, these are my 2 cents. I have been lucky enough to meet survivors from Auschwitz and they are strong, tolerant and admirable people and they are living proof of what hate can do. Or what a nation beaten and humiated by war and poverty with a  new charismatic leader and a scapegoat has the potential to cause..................