Recently, the President of Iran gave a speech in which he stated that he does not believe there ever was a Holocaust. 

This terrifies me.

Not because of the zealots in Iran, but those people in America who may not know better.  For the children, to whom the Holocaust is ancient history.  We need to make certain that our children know.

When I was growing up, my best friend Rena's mother had numbers tattooed on her arm.  I knew what they meant.  The Holocaust wasn't a "long time ago"--it happened to Rena's mother.  My friend's mother.

But the survivors are dwindling.  There are few left to show their numbers and tell their stories.  A few years ago, when my children were toddlers, I had the honor of driving two women to a brunch a service group I belonged to was hosting for Holocaust survivors.  I brought my young children and explained to them that they were too young to understand who these women were, but that one day, they would be old enough to learn about the Holocaust and on that day, I would remind them of these women.

They were lovely women--warm and funny.  I wanted to know their stories, but instead they fretted about getting in and out of my mini van and cautioned me to stop talking and concentrate on my driving and "please, darling, drive more slowly."

But, when the survivors are gone, who will tell the stories?

We must teach our children.

This Chanukah, please read your children the book by Eve Bunting titled One Candle.  It beautifully tells the story of a young girl's grandmother who makes a candle out of a potato during the family's Chanukah dinner.  As she cuts the candle, and pours the oil and fashions the wick, she tells the story of when she and her sister were in Buchenwald.  They carefully smuggled margarine and a potato from the kitchen where they worked.  They did so, not to eat, but so that they could light a candle on Chanukah.

  "My sister Ruth whispers close to my ear, 'Why do you think  Grandma wants to do this every year?'

  I shrug my shoulders because I don't know for sure.  But I think it has to do with being strong in the bad time and remembering it in the good time.  And for the women in Grandma's barracks and the others who didn't live to come out."

If your children are older, encourage them to read The Diary of Anne Frank, better still, buy it for them for Chanukah. And if your children are even older, buy Elie Weisel's Night and Day (and read them yourself if you haven't already.)

This year at Chanukah, I will make a potato candle with my family... for Rena's mother and "the others who didn't live to come out." 

And, to make sure the President of Iran, and others like him, have no voice when they speak such evil.

 

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