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LETTERS

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"Never Again!"

s valuable as survivors are to discrediting Hitler's madness, Jewish
teenagers hold the key to spreading the story of the Shoah so its hor-
ror forever remains etched in the minds of people everywhere.
That became char to me this week, as we marked Yom HaShoah
(Holocaust Remembrance Day), Yom HaZikaron (Israel Memorial Day) and
Yom HaAtzmaut (Israel Independence Day).
The teen years are a highly formative stage when peer influ-
ence is strong and many interests are solidified. With each new
generation of teenagers, we lose another generation of survivors.
So it's crucial that Jewish teens, whether descendants of sur-
vivors or not, learn about the Holocaust and its impact on
humanity, then grow and share what they know with later gen-
erations.
In this way, we as a people will keep aglow the torch of
ROBERT A. knowledge and keep before us the memorial cry cloaked in the
SKLAR
ashes of German death camp victims, "Never Again!"
Editor
Such passage of our collective will and spirit from one genera-
tion to the next is the essence of Jewish survival and continuity.
The 35 local teens on the March of the Living-Detroit Teen Poland/Israel
Unity Experience, which returns April 30, reinforced my theory in their pre-trip
essays. Their two-week trip took them from the gas chambers of Auschwitz to
the timeless prayers at Yad Vashem. They and 15 Israeli teens from the central
Galilee, Detroit Jewry's partner region, are on a march that embraces 2,500 Jew-
ish teens from 35 countries.
Aubrey Beneson, 16, of Young Israel of Southfield and the grandchild of a
survivor, clearly understood the connection between the distant lands. He
wrote, "The youth of today is the last hope for the millions who went through
the atrocities of the Holocaust. We are the last to hear their stories directly from
them, not from tapes or secondhand. We have to make sure generations after us
know what happened and never let it happen again."
In anticipation of touching those who fell victim during the German occupa-
tion of Poland, Sara Levin, 17, of Adat Shalom Synagogue in Farmington Hills,
wrote, "I will dedicate to their memory my future in educating Jews and non-
Jews about the events that happened. Once we are all educated, we can, as a
human race, say together, 'Never Again!' "

Power Talks

As we look to our youth for leadership, there's no denying the priceless wisdom
of our elderly.
Take Southfield's Ezekiel Leikin, 81, a Jewish emigre
from Lithuania. He perceptively asks, "Does 'Never
Again!' denote an appeal and a challenge to the world
to make sure that the conditions that spawned the
Holocaust shall 'never again' be repeated, or is it a col-
lective vow by, and on behalf of, the Jewish people to
adopt a strategy of survival that shall make a recurrence
of the Holocaust an impossibility?"
I think it means empowering ourselves so we don't
again become a target of genocide. And we can do that
by educating the ignorant, protecting our homeland,
Ezekiel Leikin
and building cultural, political and economic might, no
matter where we live.
Says Leikin, "Our Galut (Diaspora) experience has shown, all too clearly, that
powerlessness meant death and that the cultivation of Jewish power was the
only alternative to extinction."
It's through remembering the Holocaust, and the social forces behind it, that,
as Dr. Charles Silow, president of the Children of Holocaust Survivors Associa-
tion in Michigan, put it at Sunday's community-wide Yom HaShoah program,
"We will live as proud and free Jews."
As emerging young adults with still-developing ideas, teens are best posi-
tioned to be bridges between those who brushed death's shadow at the hands of
the Nazis and those who are too immersed in their own lives to explore what
"Never Again!" really means. ❑

Sensitivity
Versus Blame

Respectfully, I beg to disagree with
your editorial on Germany ("Judging
Germany Today," April 20, page 27).
As a Holocaust survivor, I do not
hold the present generation of Ger-
mans as being participants in the
Shoah. They are blameless.
But the blame for the loss of 6 mil-
lion kedoshim had to be laid squarely
on the previous, older Nazi murder-
ers. We, the survivors, cannot, nor
will we, forgive or forget.
As an American and a businessman,
I understand global trade and we all
enjoy freedom of choice. I agree with
you that it is impossible to avoid pur-
chasing small German-made household
appliances, which are almost invisible.,
You even mention that one can choose
to boycott Volkswagen.
But why do so many Jewish people
show no sensitivity and purchase a
Mercedes-Benz? That is the very car
that high-ranking Nazi officers used
to arrive in the ghetto; this was fol-
lowed by atrocities and executions.
The mere insignia of that car
evokes painful memories! I am sure
that most survivors will agree.
Sam Offen

West Bloomfield

We Must Not Let
Memories Fade

I was appalled by the inferences in the
article on Germany and its symbol of
the 1942-45 Holocaust ("American
Jews, Germany and the Persistence of
Memory" April 20, page 14). While
higher officials search for signs of
anti-Semitism, even today, ordinary
Germans revel in their smoldering
poison for Jews. Were this not suffi-
cient, rampages from World War II
still infect and indeed prosper in
Poland and Austria.
Jews buying German cars and Jew-
ish corporations purchasing electronic
equipment while the smell of burnt
Jewish flesh still floats in the cool air
of 2001 symbolizes the height of Jew-
ish perversion and moral blindness.
It is only 57 years ago that Jews
were hunted and murdered for merely
existing. Are we Jews simply to forget,
except for once a year, the wrath of

LETTERS on page 6

BECAUSE
EVERY
CHILD
IS PART
OF OUR
COMMUNITY

JARC
Merle and Shirley Harris
Children and
Family Division

Services for children with special
needs and their families.

•

✓ Outreach, .support,
information, referral and
advocacy for families

✓ Educational and social
programs for families

✓ In-home respite care with a
trained JARC staff person

✓ Case management with a
person-centered focus

✓ Funding for aides so children
with special needs can
participate in recreational
activities with their non-
disabled peers

✓ Comprehensive supports to
help children with special
needs successfully attend
religious schools

Thanks to The Jewish Fund
and Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit for their
support of the Harris Division.

Call JARC at

248-538-6610

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30301 Northwestern Hwy.
Suite 100
Farmington Hills, MI 48334

4/27
2001

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