Monday, Jan.27, was Holocaust Remembrance Day and marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. It is a day to remember an era that represents the very worst of man’s inhumanity to man.
The raids, the roundups, the deportations, the killing of millions and millions of people is a sin which marks all mankind. It should never be trivialized as some historical blip that, in the words of one prominent administration official speaking to a political rally in Germany, is guilt “that we need to move beyond”.
Humanity has yet to learn its lesson. If only the Holocaust was a rarity. In the lifetime of my generation, the list of subsequent atrocities carried out runs long: the Khmer Rouge, Sudan, Apartheid South Africa, Rwanda, Bosnia……
Our own nation is marked by the original sins of our founding, centuries of slavery and the methodical conquest of Native Americans. Even after emancipation our history remains tainted by lynchings, by racial intimidation, by xenophobia.
A century ago, laws were passed to keep Southern and Eastern Europeans from immigrating, laws aimed at Italians and Jews. Fears were stoked by politicians for political gain. A century later antisemitism is on the rise, and rising xenophobia is targeting immigrants and Muslims—even Muslims who are citizens.
Fear and anger are potent political weapons. Taken to an extreme they become dangerous even in a civil society founded on the rule of law.
It is helpful when remembering the Holocaust to reflect on the words of Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel and his speech on Dec. 10, 1986. He spoke to the plight of Israel, but also the plight of the Palestinian people. While deploring violence and terrorism, he expressed empathy for those caught in refugee camps. He spoke out for a peaceful solution.
(Note: You can read his speech on the Nobel Prize website. But as noted, the text of the speech was different. The video is there to watch.)
In 2025 that speech remains a call for all humanity. We live in a world where politicians in Europe and the Western world are now feeling safe to talk about ethnic purity and are denouncing multiculturalism. We live in a world where teachings of Christ’s mercy spoken by Pope Francis or a bishop are denounced as “woke-ism”.
For Elie Wiesel, he was just a boy when the surge of Nazi Germany occurred. He lost family members, neighbors, friends. All in a dark time that he defined as “The Kingdom of Night.”
“A young Jewish boy discovered the kingdom of night. I remember his bewilderment, I remember his anguish. It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car.”
Re-read that passage and replace “Jewish boy” with “Latino boy” and replace “cattle car” with “military airplane.”
Later in his speech he talks about that young boy again: “‘Can this be true?’ This is the twentieth century, not the Middle Ages. Who would allow such crimes to be committed? How could the world remain silent?”
Re-read that and replace the twentieth century with twenty-first. The question of silence is bound by intimidation. Of instilling fear. Politicians fear a loss of their power. Citizens fear being ostracized or intimidated by others. A bullying meanness masquerading as “leadership” has taken root. The weight of that meanness is falling upon the most vulnerable among us.
Wiesel went on to state: “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – must become the center of the universe.”
It is a dangerous time in this world. The type of persecution described above is rampant around the world. In 2025 America, it is not acceptable to state that human rights, lives and dignity transcend national boundaries. But they do. There was a time when we understood that, when presidents like Ronald Reagan believed we were to be a welcoming beacon of hope for the oppressed peoples of the world.
The danger we must avoid is to forget human history, to forget American history as some would have us do by banning books and sanitizing the complex history of our founding. Understanding history is the only way to avoid repeating its mistakes.
But Wiesel continues: “I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices. We could not prevent their deaths the first time, but if we forget them they will be killed a second time. And this time, it will be our responsibility.”
We face a moment in history. This week began marking Holocaust Remembrance Day and will conclude with the start of Black History Month. There is a rise in antisemitism, Islamophobia and condemnation of others because of their race or who they choose to be or who they choose to love. There is a movement afoot to suppress teaching this nation about a difficult history that has yet to find its home in the harbor of our more perfect union.
It would be easier to forget, to move past it. A difficult past makes us uncomfortable. True leadership cannot be rooted in historical amnesia. To aspire to greatness, we must accept and face hard truths. Those lessons help attain the goals set forth so many years ago. We rose as a nation whose founding documents can and should be a challenge to us and an inspiration to the world.
But if the sun is setting to a sort of kingdom of night, where can we find hope?
Years ago, I listened to a BBC program called “Dream Builders” focusing on architects and their craft. Daniel Libeskind, the designer of The Jewish Museum in Berlin was talking about his process. The host asked him about his design of the Holocaust Tower, a stark bleak structure illuminated by a single slit of light coming through the wall.
The design came from the story of a female Holocaust survivor. She was pushed into a dark cattle car where all she could see was a solitary crack of light. She did not know where she was going or what fate awaited her at the end of her journey, but that sliver of light was her hope.
One sliver of light in the kingdom of night.
It is hard to hold out hope. There is genuine sorrow when we cannot save others. It is easy to turn the page, to scroll past hard stories. It is easy to feel powerless in the face of the raw power of disinformation unleashed to corral us into virtual camps of intimidation.
But acquiescence to tyranny and fear is not who we have been, and it must not be who we become. For most of our history, our nation stood as a beacon of light. With a golden torch held aloft as an example to the world.
There are those who want to forget the past. They want to extinguish that torch and shut down opposition for a final victory.
But we must not forget, we must not remain silent. We must interfere. Elie Wiesel spoke about that young Jewish boy, his younger self, asking what he had done. We too will have to look in the mirror and face the generations to come and answer the question about what we have done with our time, what we have done for our fellow man.
