Also this fall, our eighth grade students visited the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland to see the consequences of fascism’s crimes against human dignity, the murder of Jews, the wearing of the Star of David, medical experiments on human beings, inhumane conditions, and starvation. They learned that the anti-Jewish measures-the regulations on the labelling of Jews, the exclusion of Jews from employment and social life, the regulations restricting entry and stay in public places, the loss of their property and businesses-were an expression of the trampling of human dignity and also restricted basic human rights and freedoms. Everyone asked many questions within themselves- How must the Jews have felt, how could they have experienced this? How did the children experience it? How would they themselves experience such restrictions? Even today, we are constantly confronted with crimes against human dignity that are reminiscent of the Holocaust-terrorism, racism, neo-Nazism, hate killings. We wonder whether or not society, humanity, has learnt from these crimes. Pupils light candles at the Wall of Death in the concentration camp as a symbol of remembrance.
Many times in life we are “thrown to the ground, crumpled and stumped” by the choices we make and the circumstances that befall us. We feel as if we are worthless. But no matter what has happened, or what will happen, let us remember that we never lose our worth, our human dignity. Dirty or clean, ruined or wrinkled, we are still invaluable to those who love us.
“Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.” – Edmund Burke
