HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY 2024 – NORTH HERTS, UK
THIS YEAR’S THEME: THE FRAGILITY OF FREEDOM
YANKY FACHLER’S ADDRESS (VIA ZOOM)
On the website of Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, we read that in every genocide, those who are targeted for persecution have had their freedom restricted and removed. Freedom is indeed fragile. It cannot be taken for granted.
My late father, who escaped from Nazi Germany and survived the Holocaust thanks to the Kindertransport programme, and who lived in Letchworth for 30 years, told me that it is impossible for people born in free societies to imagine what it is like to live in a totalitarian society like the Nazi regime. He escaped, but the fragility of freedom was not accorded to his parents and most of his family who were devoured by the Nazi killing machine.
The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust website mentions several ways in which the freedoms of people targeted during the years preceding the Holocaust were restricted. Among these fragile freedoms, I have chosen 4: Freedom of religion. Freedom to self-identify. Freedom of movement. Freedom of expression.
The Nazis had a cynical habit of committing their worst atrocities on Jewish holidays. Almost 4 months ago, on the happiest day in the Jewish calendar, Simchat Torah, the Rejoicing of the Law, Hamas murderers committed the worst pogrom, the most unspeakable atrocities against Jews, since the Holocaust.
But today, I do not want to dwell on this genocidal orgy of hatred against the Jewish state of Israel. I want to talk about the atmosphere of hate and fear that has gripped Jews outside Israel since 7 October. Jews everywhere are feeling vulnerable in a way that is very reminiscent of the period before the Holocaust.
Let’s start with freedom of religion. In scores of synagogues, in Britain, the USA and elsewhere, services have been cancelled, synagogues have been evacuated, graffiti has been daubed on synagogue buildings, and antisemitic crowds have jeered at Jews entering and leaving their houses of prayer.
Let’s look at freedom to self-identify. Official Jewish representative bodies around the world have warned Jews to stop wearing Star of David pendants in public. Jewish males have been warned not to wear a yarmulke – like the one I am wearing - in public. Jewish students on university campuses have been advised to take down the mezuzah from the doorposts of Jewish society premises to avoid these premises being attacked.
Let’s look at freedom of movement. In an official poll last month, 90% of British Jews said that they were afraid to go to city centres when pro-Hamas demonstrations were taking place. A Jewish peer told the House of Lords that he is more afraid when his teenage daughter travels on the London Tube than when his son serves in the Israeli army.
And let’s look at freedom of expression. Using the excuse of intersectionality, safe space, and other woke mantras, Jewish students’ voices are being stifled on university campuses. A former Jewish minister of Justice in Ireland has warned parents to think twice before sending their children to Irish universities, such is the poisoned atmosphere on Irish campuses.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is bad enough for me and my fellow Second-generation Holocaust survivors to witness the insane jump in overt anti-semitic incidents in Britain and elsewhere. But spare a thought for the impact that this is having on Holocaust survivors. I sat with my 97 year old aunt last month in Jerusalem. She, like my father, reached Britain with the Kindertransport, and lived in Letchworth for several years. She is in a state of despair and disbelief. She kept repeating: We were told “Never again.” “I believed that we had seen the end of the worst excesses of antisemitism,” she said. “I never believed that in my lifetime I would see the genie of barbarous, baseless hatred escape from the bottle once again.”
My friends, the world stood idly by and watched during the 1930s as Jews were systematically stripped of their precious, fragile freedoms – and we know where that led. It is now 2024, and the world is again standing idly by as Jews around the world – including in the UK – are watching the fundamental freedoms that they had taken so much for granted, once again being trampled on.
In sending out a warning about the fragility of the freedoms we hold so dear, I want to address the organisers of today’s event. Carol Roth Eini, a former Letchworth resident, is a Second Generation Holocaust survivor, whose grandson is now in rehab following his injuries fighting against the modern incarnation of the Nazis. You told Carol that her prepared words for today were not impartial enough. Not impartial enough? As someone who lost dozens of family members in the Holocaust that we are commemorating today, I think you may be missing the whole point of Holocaust Memorial Day.
Thank you.
- Content creation, ghost-writer, corporate trainer
- Chair, Jewish Historical Society of Ireland
- Member, Jewish Representative Council of Ireland
- Columnist, Wessex Jewish News
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