I started this blog a LONG LONG time ago, but I never had time to update it.
This may be a bit of a heavy topic to start talking about, but it just affected me so much that I feel like I should share it. Let me preface this by saying that I work at a performing arts facility and that our theater company is doing a production called "I Never Saw Another Butterfly." It's about a girl who lived in a concentration camp during the Holocaust. Every time we do this production, the artistic director takes all the people involved with the show to the Holocaust Museum and has a Holocaust survivor come and speak to them. I've always been interested in the history of that time period so I was very grateful to be able to sit and listen to this man's story.
His name is Philip Gans and he was 15 when he was taken to Auschwitz III concentration camp. His grandmother, mother and sister were immediately gassed and cremated. His brother, father and himself were made to work 10 hours a day, 6 days a week for about 2 years. His brother died in the concentration camp because he was 'selected' to go to the gas chamber for being too sick. His father died on a death march while the Nazi's were moving the 'prisoners' while trying to avoid being captured by the Allies. Of his entire immediate family, only he and an aunt of his survived.
This period of time weighs on my heart so deeply. First, because of the strength of will these survivors had to live day after day in such horrific circumstances. Second, because of the strength of character that these survivors had that they could move on from these events and still know joy and peace and comfort and humor and for some of them...forgiveness of the people that did this to them (and those who stood by and did nothing). Third, because of the utter lack of humanity of the truly heinous people that could beat, rape and murder people just because they are different.
There are actually people who deny that the Holocaust happened. There are pictures! There is documentation! And most importantly, genocide still continues to this day. That is why it is so important to teach kids about this subject in school. The only way to prevent events like this happeneing in the world is to educate them about the horrors of discrimination.
