As of this moment, your business is being boycotted.
You are now banned from public life.
You are stripped of citizenship.
You can forget dreams of marriage.
You’re now banned from entering parks.
Government workers – you’ve just been fired.
And, you must register everything you own.
Feeling scared? Worried? Angry?
Everything that belongs to you and your community...
places of worship...
places of value...
...overnight, they were all burned to the ground... looted...
Windows were smashed and your people were attacked.
30,000 of them were forcibly taken.
They were sent to concentration camps.
30,000 – in one night.
War breaks out and you are now forced
to wear the yellow Star of David –
a beacon, to draw your enemy to you.
You are ordered out of your home and
forced into crowded, shared accommodation.
Curfews now apply and you cannot leave your home.
Every day, up to 1000 people are taken away on trains.
You don’t see them again.
You escape and go into hiding.
You are hidden in an attic, living in silence above a shop. Moving might draw attention to your presence. You live in fear... constant fear.
And then... they find you.
You are forced into a train.
Arriving at a ”camp”, you are forced to line up.
You become separated from your family.
Women, children, the elderly and the sick are in one line.
The men are in another.
The men are sent off to work.
They live.
You are sent for a shower.
“It’s a good shower – it’ll disinfect you.”
Forced to strip, you enter the shower chamber,
surely with some fear.
Instead of water, gas falls down on you.
Your older brother is sent to a labour camp.
Camp life is hard.
Every day, he is forced to perform hard labour.
He is fed barely enough to sustain him.
He shares a bed with two other men.
There is no pillow... no mattress.
All around him, men are tortured and some... killed.
His hair is shaved.
He is forced to wear prison clothes,
which are too big and prison shoes, which are too small.
On his arm, he now bears a tattoo.
A number.
Now, the Nazis are realising that their reign is drawing to an end.
They begin to cover up their atrocious acts.
They bury the ashes of the murdered in huge pits.
The gas chambers are destroyed.
Your brother is at Auschwitz, one of the main camps.
He is one of the last prisoners,
weary from years of labour and starvation.
He is forced to march towards another camp.
In January, 1945, hope arrives in the form of the Russians.
Your brother is among the remaining prisoners
and is released.
Your brother is free.
His family have all been killed.
He has no home.
He has a tattoo... a constant reminder.
But, he is free.
In my old school library, turning pages of the dusty encyclopaedia, I first learned of the holocaust. It was a little too much for me to comprehend. Over the years, I’ve learned a little of the holocaust.
In 1933, Hitler came to power in Germany.
This is when the holocaust (sacrifice by fire) started. Twelve long years later, the holocaust ended when Hitler was defeated.
The Nazis targeted the Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the disabled. People who resisted were killed.
11 million people were killed during the holocaust. (I’ll put that into perspective. On January 24th, 2011, the Australian population was 22,541,665. During the holocaust, the equivalent to half of Australia’s population was killed.)
Six million of these people were Jews.
Over a million were children.
There were six execution camps.
One camp had four gas chambers.
Each chamber could murder 6,000 people a day.
24,000 people... A day...
In one camp...
Today is the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the victims of the Holocaust.
Tonight, I plan to light 11 candles,
one for each of the million victims of the holocaust.
http://history1900s.about.com/od/holocaust/a/holocaustfacts.htm
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/1647509ef7e25faaca2568a900154b63?OpenDocument
http://www.holocaust-history.org/
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