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Last update - 10:22 01/05/2008 Holocaust Remembrance Day How a non-Jew living in Israel came to understand the Holocaust By Michalis Firillas Tags: Jews, Israel, Holocaust  I did not always understand the enormity of the crime. It has been a gradual understanding, over the three decades of connection with the Jewish people, paralleling my development from childhood to adulthood. The things a child sees are different from what an adult chooses to notice - they are less political. I had heard of the Holocaust for the first time when I was seven. At that time I heard adults talking of a very curious, terrifying phenomenon: soap made of humans. I was too scared to ask for details, but I heard the word Jews, and Hitler was mentioned too, both alien words to me. But I still had not made the connection between Jews and the Holocaust. I had heard the word used to describe terrible results of battle, of scorched corpses of national heroes. For a young Greek child the word was one of horror, of absolute catastrophe and brilliant, destructive fires. Then in early 1978 I read in a magazine of an attack on a bus, in which many Jews were killed in a huge blaze. It was described in the article as a "holocaust." I was beginning to put together a picture of Jews, victims, fire. Advertisement Our first home in Israel was in the northern town of Nahariya. On the road to town stood a large building, a museum, where I was told 'human soap' was housed. For years, every time I passed by that building, I tried not to think about it. And when they talked about the Holocaust in school, I tried not to make the connection to that building. Instead I tried to focus on the name of the kibbutz where the museum was kept - and we were encouraged to think of its meaning: Lohamei HaGetaot (Ghetto Fighters). Somehow it made the horrors I imagined - because I still did not really know - seem acceptable. I rationalized it had been a battle, a war, full of glory and the death of heroes. Over the years the narrative of heroism, victimhood, suffering and liberation, were not readily distinguishable to me. The order and proximity in which three days of commemoration fall, create a sense of historical order: Holocaust memorial is followed a week later by the memorial for the fallen soldiers of Israel, and immediately after by Independence Day celebrations. It is hard to miss the progression: we were persecuted for being Jews; we shed much blood to gain our independence; now we have a Jewish state. At a much later date, I also came to see an ominous warning in the progression: our lesson is that we will never again allow another Holocaust on our people - be warned. The real change for me, the day I began to put it all together - the horror, the enormity, the narratives, the inhumanity and the perseverance - happened when I went to the store one day. The owner, a nice little old man who looked a bit like Yoda - Mr. Katz was his name - normally had long sleeved shirts on. One summer day even he succumbed to the heat wave. A barely discernible smudge on his arm, somewhere in the wrinkled old skin, stood out as he reached out to give me change. Mesmerized I stared and realized it was a number. To me, the number came to symbolize the uniqueness of the Holocaust. It was no longer just genocide; it was something else, something for which I am still short of words. In retrospect I think that the number on the arm of Mr. Katz shocked me because it made him definitively unheroic. It stripped him of his identity, of his individualism as a human being. It encapsulated everything that organized extermination was about. The sort of killing that targets people without pathos, without feeling and afterthought: a mechanical, calculated massacre, with the kind of distance between victim and perpetrator that makes it seem almost banal. Over the years I have had much criticism for the State of Israel. But, as time passed and I came to understand the Holocaust better, the more I realized that there are many out there who still do not fathom its horror, its uniqueness and its significance. This only strengthened my conviction in the need for a Jewish State. Indeed, I was not always a Zionist. But vitriol, hatred and ignorance of the sort uttered regularly by the likes of Iran's President, Hezbollah's leader and Hamas, have made me one. Their raw anti-Semitism, and its echoes around the world have led me to draw a red line: I can no longer imagine continued Jewish existence without the State of Israel. I will continue criticizing Israel where I think it deserves it. And I will continue challenging the victorious, linear narratives of Jewish fanatics. The Holocaust does not make Jews or Israel infallible. Nor did the Holocaust alone make Israel - that is post-colonial gibberish of hateful extremists. But so long as there are those out there dreaming of another Holocaust, I know whose side I am on. Michalis Firillas is an editor at Haaretz English Edition, and blogs on Worldview (http://firillas.blogspot.com) Bookmark to del.icio.us   Stronger than its ills The 60th anniversary celebrations are accompanied by a bad taste. Rise in racism Israeli Arabs say institutionalized racism has increased.   1.   soap? 01:26  |  m 01/05/08   2.   understanding the holocaust 03:45  |  SportsDoc 01/05/08   3.   HOLOCAUST, HORROR ON A MASSIVE SCALE 04:08  |  JH 01/05/08   4.   Human nature explains the Holocaust 05:39  |  Conroy 01/05/08   5.   Conroy? heard of the balfour declaratiopn? 06:39  |  get a clue 01/05/08   6.   One comment 07:26  |  Gordon 01/05/08   7.   A non-Jew living in Israel 10:37  |  Ros 01/05/08   8.   Defintion of Holocaust 10:42  |  Niki 01/05/08   9.   #6 Unique 11:22  |  Rab Burns 01/05/08   10.   JH from NH - Offensive 12:04  |  Michael Jacobs 01/05/08   11.   # 1 Nizkor Tamid... 12:09  |  Jim 01/05/08   12.   Who`s suffering? 12:25  |  Niki 01/05/08   13.   generalization 13:00  |  Niki 01/05/08   14.   #10 Michael Jacobs, 13:06  |  Jim 01/05/08   15.   Let there be many Holy Lands 13:14  |  Mohideen Ibramsha 01/05/08   16.   Jim from Tn - No soothing 13:35  |  Michael Jacobs 01/05/08   17.   Let us remember also the non-Jews, who died in the camps 15:37  |  AliciaYasmeen 01/05/08   18.   Uniqueness of Holocaust: curious pride... 16:47  |  Ulf 01/05/08   19.   Soap 23:15  |  Russ 01/05/08   20.   It *was* unique 03:24  |  Gili 02/05/08   21.   ulf 18 03:58  |  potobac 02/05/08   22.   YES, THE `H` AND THE ARABS ARE LINKED. 14:47  |  IamJOSEPH 02/05/08   23.   Grasping genocide is not Jewish related 15:53  |  Ulf 02/05/08   24.   How did he understand: He went to Gaza and saw firsthand! 22:44  |  Mona 02/05/08   25.   response to mona 00:31  |  Zolman ben Moshe 03/05/08   26.   Soap 14:52  |  Kacper Piotrowski 03/05/08   27.   where is the problem to understand it? 23:07  |  manolo 03/05/08   28.   Henry Kissinger 02:01  |  Ben Azai 04/05/08   29.   # 5 stabbed in the back for Palestine? 02:07  |  Sherlock Holmes 04/05/08   30.   # 17 the other more than six million in the camps 02:12  |  Joseph 04/05/08   31.   Humanity must not forget 14:48  |  Mawloud Ould Daddah 05/05/08   32.   Thank you 00:24  |  Paul Rosman 10/05/08

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