Last week the Shoa (שואה ) day was celebrated in Israel. The Catastrophe day. Day of the Holocaust victims memorizing. This is a day when every Jew and not only Jew stops for a minute and thinks…oh my G-d! How could it happen? Why did it happen? This is a day when at 10 o’clock in the morning the alarm is switched on for a minute. All traffic stops. Everyone stops. In the streets. In the offices. Everyone keeps silence. All Israeli hearts are beating in the same rhythm for this minute. Everyone thinks: “No… we didn’t forget about you, we remember and respect each of you. We know what happened to you. We know what you have lived through. We will never let anyone forget what happened. We will never let this shameful horrible thing happen again.
There is a place in Jerusalem called Yad Vashem. That is the museum, which tells us about Holocaust. It shows how people lived before and during Holocaust and the Second World War.
When you come to the Museum, in the beginning  you see a big screen with pictures of people in everyday life before the War, before the Catastrophe, before the Nazi ideology came. This life was lovely. Of course people had problems, had difficulties. But they had life, they were singing, talking, going to cafés, dreaming, planning their future. They were normally living all together.
After Germany was defeated in the First World War, life became very difficult for everybody, for every citizen. But suddenly a new actor appeared on the political stage of Germany. Adolph Hitler. He was a leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party, the Nazi party. Nowadays we can see that he appeared in the right place and the right time. Maybe if he would appear earlier or later, people would laugh at him and his ideas. He came when the nation was depressed and disappointed. When a huge economic and politic crisis took it place.  When people were waiting for someone who could tell them: “No, we were not wrong. Our country doesn’t have to pay reparations. We don’t owe anything to anyone. We are the chosen people. We are the best. We are the strongest. We should be proud of ourselves.”  That’s why people accepted him. His ideas. Not at the beginning, but step by step his words, his propaganda was getting into their minds, their blood, and their souls. Hitler was getting stronger and stronger. He wrote his famous “Mein Kampf”, where he explained his ideas and views. His ideas were against Jews, against Judaism and Communism, he was calling the USSR regime a "Judeo-Bolshevik" one. He also explained his views towards “the ideal man”, his qualities, his features. He called them “master race”. In his book Hitler described a pyramid of nations. From master race to the Slovenians, who were only good for being slaves.  The interesting fact was that there were no Jews in this Pyramid. They were not good enough to live, to exist.
In the beginning, before the War, Nazi were trying to get rid of Jews, they created horrible conditions, to squeeze the people out the country. Those who could -  escaped to Palestine, to France, to many other places. But not every one could. Not everyone had enough money to run away. Not everyone was able to understand that his country was not his anymore, that because of his religion or curly hair he cannot me a citizen anymore. Not everyone could understand that the word “Jew” became negative.
When the WW2 started, and a part of  Poland was invaded, the Jewish Question was raised again. What to do with those Jews? We don’t want them here. So, the concentration camps and ghettos  were built. In the beginning their aim was to concentrate Jews, Gypsies, Slovenians  there, later – to concentrate for annihilation. The more –the better. Children, men, women, old and young. Those who were able to work were laboring hardly , those who couldn’t – were killed or dying.
The Nazi machine was very inventive. New mass killing methods were found, waste-free production about which people learn coming nowadays to the concentration camps for excursion.
After the Battle of  Stalingrad, when the Red Army started taking over and pushing out the Nazi forces from captured territories and releasing lands, the Nazis understood, that they can be punished hardly for their crimes, and tried to burn the camps, the graves, the bodies of the murdered people. But when u do something so massive and horrible, it is not easy to cover up your  traces. Too many people knew. Too many people saw. Too many people suffered. Too much blood was on their hands.

Sometimes our younger generation ask us :” Why did it happen?”  Of course we can tell them about depression in Germany after the First World War, about economic instability, about Hitler. We can give them quotations from “Mein Kampf” and explain them why Hitler was so popular with his crazy ideas among his people, but still, as civilized people, humans who think that Democracy, Human Rights and Freedoms are the most important things, that tolerance and respect to all religions and nations are going without saying, we cannot answer this question. Still our hearts cannot find the answers. How could it happen?
The only thing that we can do now – is to remember, to respect. What we can do now – is to understand that each person who died in Holocaust – a Jew, a Gypsy, a Slovenian, a German was a  human being. Who had a life, who had a dream, who was planning his future. Who wanted to get married or to get good education, who wanted to see the world or to buy a new bicycle for his son. Who had a name and a family. Who’s name maybe was  lost in archives but still burns in the hearts of his descendants. We know the figure of 6 million people killed during the Catastrophe. So, the only thing we can do now – is not let this event to happen again.