Sunday is Yom Hashoah or Holocaust Remembrance Day. That such a thing as the Holocaust could occur is beyond my understanding. I have read a number of books on the subject and WWII in general. There was a line from a movie some years ago where one of the actors gives a line, a question, “How could this happen in the land that gave us Beethoven, Goethe and Schiller?” Given the ethnic cleansings and wholesale massacre of so many minorities in our own generation I guess one cannot, not ever underestimate, man’s inhumanity to man. Fortunately there are Schindlers and Rusesabaginas. Lest you do not know, Paul Rusesabagina was the hotel manager who saved more than a thousand Tutsis from Hutu butchers when war erupted in Rwanda in 1994. According to one UN source, within 100 days of war 800,000 people were dead. 'Hotel Rwanda' is worth renting at the video store.
Untoward and racist comments by a talk show hoast aimed at the Rutgers Women's B-Ball team, ('nap headed hos' or slang for street prostitutes), remind us that gender, cultural religious, and ethnic prejudices still exist in America. Maybe we have not made enough progress yet.
Sunday should be a day to reflect on Yom Hasoah and other things. I am profoundly grateful for the addition of two new grandsons to our circle and for other things.
