ALEXANDER KIMEL - HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR
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ALEXANDER KIMEL - HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR |
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 MAIN - SITE MAGAZINE-SITE HLC. INFERNO Inferno Children Survivors Forgotten Memor. The Last Sermon The Jumper Lovers & Enemies Shlojme Balagule The Fall of Sevast.
MEMOIRS -SURV.Autobiogr. Notes The Shtejtl World Collapses The Russians. Shtejtl survives First Kaddish. Out of the Grave Yom Kippur Action The Baby Bunker Building Bunker Collapses I Almost Killed ... Ghetto Escape In Hiding The Liberation.
POETRYPoetry Prayers Survivor Creed Archivist Poetry
HLC. EDUCATI0NFinal Solution What Happened? The Killings Why Jews? Organizers Collaborators War against Jews Anti-Semitism Victims of Antisem The Worst Camp Nazi Methods Hitler - Syphilitic Hitler the Man Hitler & Jews Perpetrators Himmler Heydrich Goebbels The Victims Hlc. Syndrome The Rescuers Jewish Resistance Church Silence Nazi Revolution Jews Abandoned Other Genocides Schindler. Courageous Christians Remebr. Day
POST-HLC . ISSUESHlc. Legacy Revisionism Jews & Germans Jews & Poles Other Victims Research Topics
MISCELLANEOUSHlc. Sites Links Our Mail & Press Bibliography
HLC. PLAYSThe Verdict
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HOLOCAUST EDUCATIONby Alexander KimelI believe that the Holocaust Education should rest on three pillars: What? Why? How? - - -What Happened? Why did it Happen? What should be done to avoid a future repetition? Remembering the victims or recording all the details of this enormous tragedy is not enough. Are we contented to report history in all its details, or should we strive to understand the historical forces, man's limitations to overcome his instinctual drives, the herd instinct, his inability to withstand the pressures of a totalitarian state? Prevention through Understanding. We have to look at our civilization through the prism of the Holocaust and find out what is wrong with a civilization that burns children alive, kills people in the millions and generally accepts violence with a shrug of the shoulders? How can one explain the post Holocaust genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda or Serbia? When I look a the map of the world, the first thing that strikes me is the importance of religious and political tolerance. The standard of living and the general well being of societies is proportionate to their level of tolerance. Just compare the USA, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the Moslem countries. If one superimposes on this map the Holocaust survival rate one can reach interesting conclusions. WHY DID ORDINARY MEN KILL? All the killings were done by ordinary men. No preselection was needed for joining the Einsatzgroupppen or the SS. Why Did Ordinary Men Kill? In the modern world there is the division of responsibility between the states and the churches. The churches are responsible for our spiritual life and for our afterlife. The states are responsible for the "law and order," that means for maintaining our ethical life. During the Final Solution, the Nazis removed all the legal protection from the Jews, and declared them open pray. With the silence of the churches, there was no ethical line of defense for the victims and the killings ensued. In countries where the local church leadership spoke up, as in France or Denmark, the population responded and established the ethical line of defense, thousand of victims survived. I believe that one can draw a simple diagram indicating the Jewish survival rate related to the preoccupation with the afterlife of the host nations. THE JEWS AND THE WORLD There are about 15 million Jews among the world population of about 4 billion, and although the percentage of Jews is minuscule (about 1/3 of 1%), they are quite visible, well known and vilified. In Poland the Jews are blamed for all Poland's misfortunes, for the excesses of Communism and for the failures of democracy. In the Ukraine the Jews are blamed for the 1934 devastating famine. In the USA the Jews perceived as controlling the media, and for financial machinations. In the Arab world the Jews are blamed for the misfortunes brought by a war by a 50 year, a war they started. The Germans started two world wars, and the Russians imposed an odious Communistic regime on million of people, but they are not vilified or hated. The victims, the Jews are. It is interesting to note that Jews are vilified even in societies without Jews. Japan, a country without Jews, and anti-Semitic stereotypes and myths have worked their way into the public mind. in Japan, "Jew" equals "greedy" or "mercenary" and where beliefs in the alleged World Wide Jewish Conspiracy are common. In some Caribbean island where Jews never lived, Christian missionaries popularized the Bible and now the word "Juif" is synonymous with corruption and dishonesty.
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