My personal Yom HaShoah message.
My father was in Auschwitz for five years. Every member of his family was murdered by the Nazis. Only he and his brother survived.
He never went to Holocaust museums. He said, emphatically, the museums are for the world. Each survivor was a living museum. They carried the truth in their bodies, in their memories, in their silence.
Holocaust museums exist so the world can remember what happened while it stood by and did nothing.
That is the part people struggle to face.
The world knew.
The world saw.
And the world did nothing.
And even now, there are those who deny it happened. Others minimize it, distort it, or turn it into something abstract—something safely contained in history books and commemorations. Something that feels resolved because it is remembered.
By Doris Wise
