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On Which Side Do You Stand?

Writer's picture: Shira Lankin Sheps, MSWShira Lankin Sheps, MSW

I took this photo 20 years ago, on a random corner of a little village in Poland.

I was there to see the camps and to visit the little hamlets and shtetls where Jews lived before the war.

We were there not just to commemorate the loss of 6 million Jews, but also to remember the lives they lived before they were exterminated.

Our tour guide was asking the people of the village if they remembered their Jewish neighbors; some refused to speak to us, jeered at us, turned, and walked away.

Some of the older ones responded with tears in their eyes.

They did remember us.

Some even expressed remorse.

There was guilt on many of their faces.

Because they knew what had happened to us.

Many knew what was happening as it happened.

My Oma used to say, "Everyone knew. If you didn't know, you didn't want to know."

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day- the day that Auschwitz was liberated in 1945.

I'll never forget my visit there.

The Zyklon b leaving blue trace marks on the walls of the gas chambers.

The crematoria and the lake of rainwater that formed next to it, in reaction to the heaviness of the ashes of burned bodies that weighed down the earth.

I remember how cold it was there in the early spring; I was bundled up in many layers, jackets, hats, and boots, and still I was freezing.

I thought about my family, 70 members (only on one side) who were sent there, and who perished there.

How cold they must have been.

How much life they could have lived.


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Auschwitz is the manifestation of propaganda.

Of believing that Jews are sub-human, vermin, and the root of all evil; the foundation of the ills of society.

Not only did people know, they participated.

They wanted to rid themselves of us once and for all.

Today, all the information about what is really happening is available.

There is not one piece of footage of Oct 7th or anything that happened afterward that is not available to watch on the internet.

People choose to engage with propaganda because it feeds the hatred that is already there.

That is why people all over the world who "hate Zionists" feel free to attack any and all Jews.

Because it's simply, and purely, antisemitism.

And antisemitic propaganda takes lives.

Today, if you "don't know" what has happened to our people in Israel- what the hostages have experienced in tunnels underground...

If you look at H*mas propaganda about the hostages and think that they have been cared for for 15 months-

and you don't listen to their stories.

or watch the footage.

You don't want to know.

And if you don't want to know-

You are taking your place in history.

The stories of the biggest tragedies have pages lined by people who stood and eagerly watched.

Just know on which side you stand.

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