EDITORIAL

To Remember
The Holocaust

A

wareness of the Holocaust is on
the increase of late, a positive
sign after decades of silence in
the 1950s and '60s.
In East Berlin, the new parliament
last week issued a memorable state-
ment, an apology for Nazi crimes corn-
mitted during World War II. After 40
years of official denial, the parliament
accepted joint responsibility for "the
humiliation, expulsion and murder of
Jewish men, women and children," and
declared willingness to pay reparations
to victims and seek diplomatic ties
with Israel.
"We feel sad and ashamed, and ac-
knowledge this burden of German his-
tory," the statement said. "We ask the
Jews of the world to forgive us. We ask
the people of Israel to forgive us for the
hypocrisy and hostility of official East
German policies toward Israel and for
the persecution and degradation of
Jewish citizens also after 1945 in our
country."
In Israel, the sense is that while the
statement was 45 years overdue, it was
a positive and welcome step, paving the

ON TIE

way for further dialogue.
Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Memorial
Day, will be observed on Sunday, in
Detroit and around the country. Each
year, more and more communities,
synagogues and churches are marking
the day. The local community-wide
observance will take place on Sunday,
at 1:30 p.m. at the Maple-Drake Jewish
Community Center. Michigan Gover-
nor James Blanchard will receive the
Righteous Gentile Award for his life-
long concern about the Holocaust and in
recognition of state support of the
Holocaust Memorial Center.
The Holocaust is of such magnitude
that commemorations cannot be lim-
ited to a day or a week of events each
year. The collective message of these
events is that memory must win out
and the Holocaust must not be
forgotten.
We can do our small share by not
only reflecting on the tragedy but
taking part in an observance and feel-
ing the privilege, and the respon-
sibility, of keeping the Jewish people
alive.

A Wider Vision
For The Future

A

$147 million project is now a
muddy hole in the ground in
Washington: the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum. The mu-
seum, now under construction and
scheduled to open in three years, will
be right off the Mall that houses the
Smithsonian. With exhibits, programs
and educational facilities, it promises
to be unique and compelling. Its ex-
hibits will include barracks from
Birkenau and hair from Auschwitz and
a railroad car that carried Jews from
the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka. They
will shock and stun.
There will, undoubtedly, be many
tears shed in this museum. It will not
be a place of celebration, but of realiza-
tion of the plagued, diseased abyss of
the human soul. It will be a place
where not only history is remembered,
but also our humanity, with all of its
shortcomings and frailties. It will be a
fitting counterpoint to its more cheer-
ful, roseate museum neighbors.
The test of the museum will come
when it finally opens its doors in early
1993. Will people come to be reminded
of the horrible? If they do come, will
they learn from their experience? Or

6 FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 1990

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will a visit to the Holocaust Museum
just be a Spielbergian encounter, a
quick, ephemeral rush of the emotions
and scant attention to content?
For now, these questions cannot be
answered. But the dedication of the
museum's staff and the brave ambition
of their plans gives one hope that this
will be a project that captures the
hearts, and minds, of visiting Americans.

The museum is intended as a center
for Holocaust studies and remem-
brances in the United States. But it
will not supplant local Holocaust com-
memorations and educational efforts,
through Detroit's Holocaust Memorial
Center and the work of countless pri-
vate individuals, to ensure that we and
our neighbors remember the martyrs of
the Holocaust and the warped Nazi
thinking that led to their destruction.

The Holocaust is of such towering
magnitude that commemorations to it
cannot be subsumed to one event in the
nation's capital. The many Holocaust
remembrances this Sunday will re-
verberate with one another. Their col-
lective message will be that memory will
win.

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LETTERS

Article Challenges
Logical Answers

This is definitely a "first"
for me! I've never felt "mov-
ed" enough to comment on
any news article until now!
I would think that a majori-
ty of views received by new
organizations would be of a
"negative" nature. Mine are
not!
Not only did I enjoy reading
a well-written article, I also
found myself being cleverly
entrapped in the mystique of
religion as I read and, yes re-
read, Elizabeth Applebaum's
April 6 article, "Rabbis Use
Intellectual Tools To Prove
God Wrote The Torah."
I don't consider myself a
religious Jew, having for-
mulated most of my outlooks
and viewpoints along lines of
a scientific approach toward
the multitude of questions
that life poses . . . much more
so than the convenient
mystical approach that
religion offers.
Simply stated, my life was
orderly, organized, and quite
"in place." I was satisfied
with most of my scientific and
logical answers to life's many
mysteries. Please don't
misunderstand; I wasn't
ashamed of being a Jew — I
just didn't understand the
need to "practice" that belief.
If the story about the
deliverance of a couple of
stone tablets on Mt. Sinai to
the Jewish people gave future
generations the impetus
needed to practice religion so
be it!
Then I read Ms. Apple-
baum's article! In less than
the several minutes it took to
read, 30 years of adult "cer-
tainty" and "complacency"

just as quickly were replaced
with "uncertainty" and
"piety"!
I re-read the article again,
looking for scientific answers,
logical answers, any answers
that would allow me to
believe that the Torah could
just as conceivably have
been the work of man instead
of the work of God. But my
mind could not fathom how
any human could accurately
predict names and events
that would become part of
history thousands of years
later!
Quietly I told myself:
answers that were good
enough before now required
further and deeper explana-
tions, i.e. the origin of that
first blade of grass or the egg
that would become the first
chicken.
Before, I didn't believe or
disbelieve in the existence of
God. Now, I found myself ac-
cepting a power greater than
that of any human as the
"answers" to those mysteries
I had so conveniently ac-
cepted along scientific lines.
In short, the acceptance of
the "parting" of the Red Sea
as an act of nature, an earth-
quake, now took on a different
kind or acceptance!
I don't know if one can
become a "believer" in the
complexities of something as
complicated and mystical as
religion by simply reading an
article, but my mind was
"challenged" beyond its com-
prehension, and isn't that, in
fact, the basis for why people
turn to religion to begin with,
to comfortably answer those
questions that defy or are cer-
tainly beyond logic? I would
think so!

Richard S. Hartz
West Bloomfield

