On Yom Kippur, Exhibit Stands As A Stark Reminder: Never Forget

On Yom Kippur, those practicing Judaism across the world mark the holiest day of the year. It's a time for atonement, repentance, and prayer.

But as a woman who is not Jewish, I, too, find myself deeply moved this Yom Kippur. Recently, on a trip to New York City, I ventured downtown to Battery Park for the exhibit "Auschwitz: Not Long Ago, Not Far Away," on display through January 3 at The Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust.

Growing up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, we lived in a community marked by drastic disparity. In the home I shared with my conservative Norwegian grandmother and my very forward-thinking, liberal mother, all were accepted and welcomed at our table to share Nanny's Scandinavian krumkaker and fish pudding.

My mother told me once about a friend of hers who'd been in a concentration camp, about the numbers on her wrist that she kept carefully hidden— and how she believed that no one should ever be brutalized because of their race, religion or personal beliefs.

I'll never forget my mother's face when she told me that story.

But when I first attended public high school, I got an almost instant awakening that blanket tolerance and acceptance were not the norm. There were violent, savage brawls outside the school at dismissal some days, with white and black teens shaking the buses and screaming, their words laced with hatred.

I remember having a crush on the teenager who worked at the corner candy store. I was young, turning 14, and I talked about him, shyly, to a friend in my class. "You can't like him!" she said, shocked. "He's a spic."

Later, I heard dark whispers about groups of young men who'd go to the West Side Highway in New York on a Friday night, hoping to find gay men and rough them up — or worse. I was too young then to really understand, but there was a sick, horrific dread, realizing that all I'd ever believed was true existed only in the walls of my own Brooklyn home. That outside, there were unspeakable acts of violence perpetrated just because some people had a different skin color or religion.

Then, when I was a senior in high school, I was able to choose from a list of electives and thankfully found Sally Frishberg's class, "Literature of the Holocaust." Herself a Holocaust survivor who hid from the Nazis, Mrs. Frishberg shared stories that opened my eyes forever and ignited a lifetime fire for change — burning as fiercely bright as the candle I lit after I won an essay competition — the candle was one of six, each representing 1 million Jewish souls who died during the Holocaust.

Elie Wiesel. Anne Frank. The books we read, the conversations we shared, became a part of the fabric and fiber of who I became. They shaped my voice, my fervent wish to make some kind of tangible change in a world torn by anger, discrimination, and hatred.

Most of all, they taught me to never, ever forget.

When I went to the Auschwitz exhibit recently, past and present suddenly collided in a much-needed, yet horrifying way. The museum itself stands facing the Statue of Liberty; turn the other direction and the Freedom Tower stands at the site of one of the greatest atrocities our nation has ever endured on 9/11.

Walk up to the museum and there, outside, is a freight car once used to transport food and goods that, during World War II, was used by the Nazis to deport people to concentration and extermination camps.

Step inside and the exhibit is a testament to all that was lost: Luggage, carefully marked by a clearly well-respected doctor, who'd clearly expected to return home. A baby's shoe and sock. A woman's beautiful high-heeled shoe. A photo of the many, many shoes that were left, discarded in piles.

And these words, an excerpt from "I Saw A Mountain, by Moshe Schulstein in 1947: "We are the shoes, we are the last witnesses. We are shoes from grandchildren and grandfathers, From Prague, Paris and Amsterdam, And because we are only made of fabric and leather, And not of blood and flesh, Each one of us avoided the hellfire."

"Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away," according to the Museum, is "the most comprehensive exhibition ever on Auschwitz, featuring more than 700 original objects contributed from over 20 institutions around the world, many on display in North America for the first time, including 10 artifacts on loan from the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam."

The exhibition also includes 400 photographs; the German-made, Model 2 freight train car used for deporting Jews to Auschwitz; and a shofar — or ram’s horn-turned-wind instrument — that was clandestinely blown in the camp during Rosh Hashanah 75 years ago and secreted out on a Death March for safeguarding ever since."

I walked in hushed silence, reading along with a crowd of similarly subdued visitors about the chain of events that led to a reign of terror and horror beyond comprehension. The simple objects displayed — an soft, embroidered blouse, a necklace, a child's doll crafted from a camp blanket "probably at risk of death," are a shockingly innocent contract to the stark reality of a world ripped asunder by hatred.

On Yom Kippur, the world woke to a killing of two outside a temple in Germany.

And the words "never again" ring even more loudly in ears and hearts. Never again — and yet, the incident in Germany seems to reflect a world so fueled by rage that in fact, such acts of hatred will continue to erupt like so much carnage, unless the world, together, works together for change.

No matter where an individual stands politically, as humans, Yom Kippur should be a day to reflect, to resolve — to remember. No matter how agonizingly painful, the past must be kept close to protect the future.

The shoes, the tiny baby shoes and broken dreams left in piles of smoking ash at Auschwitz stand a forever reminder that no one can ever, ever afford to forget.

This post is an opinion piece and the views expressed here are the author's own.