Ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January, the Canary spoke to people who survived, or whose close relatives survived, the Holocaust. And they told us why the phrase ‘never again’ means nothing without action against Israel’s genocide in Gaza today.
They felt that:
- Too many people have failed (or refused) to learn the lessons of the Holocaust.
- Denial of the Gaza genocide is a “mark of moral decline”.
- Western governments have chosen to look away from the genocide in Gaza despite having the power to stop it.
We will share everyone’s words in full. But to go straight to a specific person’s comments, click on their name below:
Agnes Kory
never again means never again against anybody. It means no genocide against Palestinians: NOT IN MY NAME.
Over the decades, Holocaust Memorial Day events (on 27th January) were sacrosanct for me. I am a Hungarian Jewish Holocaust Child Survivor whose family suffered the horrors of the Holocaust in numerous ways. My aunt was taken to Auschwitz, my father to Mauthausen and all members of the wide family had struggled to survive (or died).
My mother, a piano teacher, was pregnant with me (her first child). Wisely and determinedly, she obtained a lowly job in a hospital where she worked as a cleaner. She gave birth to me under our false names. My mother was supposed to be Julia Sarkany – an illiterate and fallen woman – pregnant without a husband. I was Agnes Sarkany, the illegitimate child of a fallen woman.
During her months of hiding under a false name, my mother was treated very badly by other workers around her. Not because she was Jewish – it was not known – but because she was a lowly, fallen woman.
“Fight that such times should never be repeated”
In the spring of 1945, my mother wrote of her experiences during the Holocaust. It is an extraordinary piece of Hungarian writing, copies of which are placed in numerous museums.
For my 13th birthday my mother presented her memoirs to me with a new cover page: “For my darling Agnes, so that you remember and fight that such times should never be repeated”
Thus started my life-long Holocaust research as well as my opposition to any genocide wherever it may be.
For the past few years I have been shouting from the top of my voice and with all my being that it was the Russian Army which liberated the Jews of the Budapest ghetto in 1945, it was a Russian soldier who liberated my mother and myself. At Holocaust Memorial Day events I say this as loudly as I can, making sure that people around me can hear it.
And, on Holocaust Memorial Day events I emphasize: never again means never again against anybody. It means no genocide against Palestinians: NOT IN MY NAME.
Haim Bresheeth-Žabner
I find the denial and obfuscation to be of a piece with the genocide itself.
As the son of two Jewish survivors of Auschwitz, whose families were murdered by the Nazis, and someone who has researched and published widely on the Holocaust AND on Israel’s genocide in Gaza, I am deeply shocked about the total denial of the events in Gaza by the wide variety of Holocaust memorial institutions. I have checked around a hundred such institutions around the globe, to see what they have published about the horrific genocide carried out in the full light of day, by the Israelis since October 2023. All such institutions are run mostly by Zionist Jews, and all share an unwillingness to mention a genocide in real time, just because it is done by Jews?!
By checking the websites of these museums, galleries, research outfits, libraries, study centres – I only found one which mentions the Gaza Genocide in a minor way. I feel this is reprehensible and deeply shocking. Most such bodies suggest that they are devoted to commemorating and opposing genocides, and some indeed have sessions about genocide both before and after the Holocaust. Sessions about the Armenian, Ukrainian, Hutu, Cambodian, and the Nama and Herero genocide were held over the last year in a variety of venues in Europe and North America. No such session about the Gaza genocide was held anywhere.
“A sad mark of moral decline”
Taking into account the great brutality involved, the fact that many Israeli genocidaires have used social media to share their pride about their crimes, and the fact that many of those Israeli Jews, as well as the Diaspora Jews who support them are probably coming from Jewish survival families, I find the denial and obfuscation to be of a piece with the genocide itself. I cannot accept it and feel that it allows such crimes to be normalised in the name of Jews – a sad mark of moral decline.
Elizabeth Morley
How can I explain to my grandchildren today that our very own government has not only not stopped the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza but actively enabled it with weapon sales and lies?
I have never needed Holocaust Memorial Day to be reminded of my mother telling me of the day she stood on a station siding somewhere in Hungary seeing her aged grandmother dragged up the steps of a cattle truck never to be seen again. Death in Auschwitz was also the fate of my paternal grandparents, aunts and uncles. Afterwards the nations hung their heads in shame and swore never again would they permit a genocide. How can I explain to my grandchildren today that our very own government has not only not stopped the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza but actively enabled it with weapon sales and lies?
Pete Hall
Israeli culture and politics are now much worse than the Nazis.
Why?
Because they glory in refusing to learn from history.
Carolyn Gelenter
remember this terrible history… and commit to those words ‘never again’ through action
As the daughter of a Polish Jewish Holocaust survivor, Holocaust Remembrance Day stands as a reminder that ‘never again’ should mean ‘never again for anyone’.
6 million, 6 hundred thousand or 6 thousand is a genocide when the intent is to wipe out all trace of a people, such as the genocide taking place in Gaza. One which our governments had the power to stop and chose not to. Indeed they are complicit. The honoring of the memory of those who died and those who survived the Shoah [‘catastrophe’ in Hebrew], juxtaposed against the power to stop an actual genocide happening before our eyes today is hypocrisy writ large, to say the least. Holocaust Remembrance Day is surely a day in which members of communities – religious, conservative, liberal or secular, should remember this terrible history, the spirit of religion and humanism, and commit to those words ‘never again’ through action. If we cannot feel and act the same towards ‘the other’ (so-called), as we do for ourselves, we are doomed forever to continued war.
This day of remembrance should stand as a reminder that a world of peace and justice is possible if we put aside our fears and stand together in common humanity. We have nothing to fear from each other, only the oligarchs and our descent into fascism. For me as a Jew, ‘never again’ means acting now as if we are all Palestinians.
Chris Romberg
Never Again is empty unless it leads to action.
My father’s Jewish family survived the Holocaust by fleeing to Britain from their home in Vienna after Austria was incorporated into Nazi Germany in 1938. Holocaust Memorial Day commemorates six million Jewish people who died in this genocide as well as the countless others who suffered loss of family, friends, home, livelihoods, possessions and more.
Deeply associated with this commemoration is the cry: Never Again! We should reflect on what we mean by these simple words.
The Holocaust was not the only massacre committed by the Nazis and their collaborators: the genocides of the Roma and Sinti (Porajmos) and of the Slavs took place in parallel, as did the murders of disabled people, LGBTQ+ people, political opponents and many others. They too should not be excluded from our memory, nor from the call Never Again! It applies to everyone.
Nor were the Nazi-led genocides the last that the world witnessed since 1945: Cambodia, Rwanda, East Timor, Biafra and more. In the 1930s and 1940s the world’s governments failed the victims of the Nazi genocides by their inaction. So too have the world’s governments and institutions repeatedly failed to prevent or even to give adequate refuge to those fleeing subsequent genocides. Never Again is empty unless it leads to action.
Today we witness the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people and once again the world’s governments and institutions are failing the victims. As much as ever we need to heed the cry Never Again and to give it meaning by action.
Voices of humanity and resistance
Dr Agnes Kory is a cellist and musicologist. The “life-long voluntary Holocaust researcher” has consistently spoken out about the genocide in Gaza. And she has criticised media hypocrisy on the issue.
Prof Haim Bresheeth-Žabner is an Israeli peace activist. Because of his regular action opposing the genocide and occupation in Palestine, he has faced arrest in the UK.
Elizabeth Morley worked at the BBC for many years. But police have arrested her on numerous occasions for her opposition to Israel’s genocide and the UK government’s repression of dissent on behalf of Israeli interests.
Pete Hall served as an Israeli soldier in the late 1960s. But he broke free from the state’s brainwashing, and has been regularly opposing the genocide in Gaza as part of the Holocaust Survivors and Descendants group.
Carolyn Gelenter has faced arrest on numerous occasions for protesting against the government’s ban on non-violent direct-action group Palestine Action. And she has criticised the way UK police officers say they are ‘just following orders‘ today, much as Nazi officers claimed they had after the Second World War.
Chris Romberg served as a colonel in the British Army. Police have also arrested him for his opposition to the controversial proscription of Palestine Action and the unnecessary political wastage of police resources it has caused.
Featured image via the Canary
By Ed Sykes
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