Holocaust Rememberance Day

There are a few places I remember visiting very vividly when living abroad, and the Dachau Concentration Camp was one of them. Jim and I visited what remained of the camp on a bleak and rainy day in 1985. I can remember my first reaction as I walked through the gates (like so many millions before me) that read “Arbeit Macht Frei” (work makes you free). I learned about the concentration camps like the rest of us through school, but I remember thinking as I walked around, “Wow, this really happened.” In my head, I knew it had, but the feeling of reality was just so overwhelming.

Many of the pre-existing buildings were gone, but models remained to depict how the people lived there (live is loose term). What I committed to memory were the crematoriums. When we entered the buildings that housed those ovens, I saw tiny candles lit, each one placed by people who had come before us. There was a box of candles provided so that we, too, could light a candle. I remember lighting the candle and setting it among long stem roses that had been left behind as well.

It was at that moment that I found myself feeling the loss of those millions of people that had died during the holocaust. Nothing else the entire day had affected me as strongly as that very moment. I remember feeling overwhelmed. My eyes watered, and I didn’t want to move forward. But we did continue our walk around, taking in all we could. The emotions I felt, we felt, are hard to put into words.

When we had seen the entire camp, we headed back toward the main gate, and as we did, I turned around and walked backwards, soaking in every image that I could before I finally had to leave. I reached the gate and, putting my hand on it, I stopped. And then I did something that millions were unable to do. I walked out of Dachau; I walked out, leaving the camp behind but keeping its memory, along with the memory of those six million murdered human beings, in my heart, never to let myself forget, never to allow something like the Holocaust to ever happen again.

So it is with this in mind that every year on Holocaust Remembrance Day, I remember. I cannot forget. I won’t forget. My candle is lit to remember them. All of them.

Holocaust comes from the Greek to be burnt whole - a sacrifice consumed by fire.