From Ian:
Never again
Never again
This Friday, Jan. 27, is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, marking the day the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp was liberated. David Harris: Remembering the Holocaust, Once Again
It is also worth noting that last week marked 75 years since the infamous Wannsee Conference in Germany, where the Nazis came together to form the Final Solution.
Incredulously, a week earlier, a German court ruled that the firebombing of a synagogue just outside Dusseldorf was not an act of anti-Semitism but a legitimate form of political protest against Israel. This same synagogue had previously been damaged during Kristallnacht.
This is the unfortunate and very dangerous reality facing Jewish communities across Europe today, many of which are forced to live their lives in the shadows, under fear of anti-Semitism.
This week, Israel's Diaspora Affairs Ministry published a new report detailing the alarming increase in global anti-Semitism, most notably in Germany, where the number of anti-Semitic incidents doubled in the past year, and the United Kingdom, which saw a 62% rise.
The fact is, we know the situation is bad. The Jewish communities of Europe know it is bad. We need another report to tell us that about as much as we need another report to say that smoking is bad for your health.
The UN designated January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. This was the day, in 1945, when the Soviet army liberated Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi German death camp that has come to symbolize the demonic depths to which the Third Reich descended in the “industrialization” of genocide.International Holocaust Remembrance Day: New Film Documents ‘Butterfly Project’ to Honor Each of 1.5 Million Children Killed by Hitler
In the Jewish tradition, we are commanded to remember (zachor) and not to forget (lo tishkach).
Let us remember...
...the six million Jews, including 1.5 million children, who were exterminated in the Holocaust (in Hebrew, Shoah).
...the entirely new alphabet created by the Nazis for the Final Solution — from the letter “A” for Auschwitz to the letter “Z” for Zyklon-B.
...not only the tragic deaths of the six million Jews, but also their vibrant lives—as shopkeepers and craftsmen, scientists and authors, teachers and students, parents and children, husbands and wives.
A documentary about a unique memorial for the children who perished at the hands of the Nazis premiered at the Manhattan Jewish Community Center this week, ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Friday.
“Not The Last Butterfly” – co-produced and -directed by Joe Fab of “Paperclips” fame — follows the path of a special project using ceramic butterflies to honor and remember each of the 1.5 million children who were murdered during World War II.
The film documents the journey that The Butterfly Project has taken since it was created in 2006 by clay mosaic artist Cheryl Rattner Price and Jan Landau, a former teacher at the San Diego Jewish Academy, who was looking for a new way to teach the kids in her class about the Holocaust.
The decision to use butterflies for the project was inspired by Frederika “Friedl” Dicker-Brandeis, an Austrian artist who, before being sent to the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau – was deported in 1942 to what the Nazis called the “model ghetto” of Terezin, where she used drawing and painting as a therapeutic tool to help the frightened and victimized children around her to express their emotions. She also taught them to see the butterfly as a symbol of hope – the way it is in many cultures: confined to an oppressive cocoon before it can spread its colorful wings and fly freely away.



























