Mom's Example

When I was in 6th Grade I had a Teacher in Germany give me an F on my Chanukah Presentation - I will retell that whole story at a later date as I do every year. My Mom saw I was more concerned with getting the F (my first bad grade ever) than about the fact that the Teacher was Anti-Semitic.

My Mom sat me down and told me about the Holocaust and that was one reason we were living in Germany. She then told me that it wasn’t just the Germans who were anti-Jewish and it wasn’t just during World War 2.

She told me a brief history about the Anti-Semitic examples from different countries and in different time periods.  She told me about the Pogroms in Czarist Russia, the Inquisition in Spain, the Anti-Jewish Campaign in Communist Poland. She also told me about the KKK and other anti-Jewish hate groups in the US.

She said that it didn’t matter that we are Catholic. That many people (Friends and Strangers) were Jewish and that we had to help them as we would help anyone who was being attacked.

My Mom’s example of helping others and teaching me got me interested in the Holocaust and how people could do these kinds of things to others.

It’s why I eventually worked at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, why I went to Israel and why I have visited so many Holocaust places and memorials around the world: Canada, the US, Aruba, the UK, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Israel, Cyprus, Ukraine, Russia, etc.

Anti-Semitism may seem like something in the past yet it is not. It is a very real and dangerous trend that come to the surface after being just below the surface for so many years. It is not just an "Old World Problem" in Europe, but found in every single Country  including the United States.