Sharon Advocate, MA
March 18 2005
Lessons from the Holocaust
By Sen. James Timilty
Friday, March 18, 2005
No one can live without heroes.
The last eye witnesses and survivors of the Holocaust and World
War II are passing away from us. It’s critical to work to keep the
history of this genocide and others alive for succeeding generations
My family’s heritage is Irish Catholic, but even the Easter
Rebellion doesn’t offer us a better hero than Peter Zvi Malkin,
Jewish guerilla, explosives specialist, and Israeli intelligence
agent.
Kids should look to Malkin’s life if they really want an action
figure to emulate. Malkin just passed away and the papers were filled
with his story. He was born in Palestine or Poland depending on which
set of documents you look at.
Disguising himself as a stain glass windows painter, who spent
many hours in Argentine churches as a cover, one of the greatest
intelligence agents the world has ever known lifted mass murderer
Eichmann out of Argentina. He wore gloves when he did the job, so he
wouldn’t have to touch the architect of the Final Solution,
responsible for the deaths of his sister and her children.
Who could blame him? When his superiors in Israel had asked him
how he would subdue Eichmann, who was anticipated to resist, he
grabbed his boss in a half nelson to demonstrate the plan. He was
sent to Argentina with an elite commando team, and the rest is
history
There is a critical role for all of us in educating or
re-educating ourselves about the Holocaust, in helping to educate the
general public about the events which occurred 60 years ago, and
about other matters concerning historic human cruelty.
Eleven million people died in the Holocaust, including Jews,
Polish citizens, Gypsies, the handicap and other minority groups.
A short time ago, world leaders warned in Krakow, Poland against
a possible resurgence of Anti-Semitism. Avner Shalev, the head of Yad
Vashem, was quoted in the New York Times recently as saying that
without a systematic approach to teaching about the Holocaust, its
meaning for future generations might fade.
Yad Vashem is the Jewish people’s memorial to the 6 million Jews
murdered in World War II. Yad Vashem symbolizes the ongoing
confrontation with the painful past and it contains the world’s
largest repository of information on the Holocaust. It was
established in 1953 by an act of the Israeli Knesset.
The systematic approach of teaching about the Holocaust and
other genocides makes absolute sense.
In Massachusetts, Chapter 276 of the Acts of 1998 requires the
formulation in public schools in the Commonwealth of curricular
materials on genocide and human rights issues, and guidelines for the
teaching of such materials.
The statute specifically refers to the transatlantic slave
trade, the Armenian genocide, and the Holocaust, as well as other
historical events including the Irish famine. The commitment and
recommitment to the serious study of these tragic periods of history
isn’t about political correctness, and it isn’t about suggesting that
everyone has suffered equally.
Fair minded people would say that simply isn’t so. Lessons of
this kind do force us to confront some of the most horrific aspects
of human behavior, however, things most people would prefer to
forget.
The history of humanity’s repeated incidents of human rights
violations, which include, but, certainly, are not limited to the
mass murder of 6 million Jewish people in World War II and the
barbaric enslavement of people of African heritage in America and
elsewhere, the genocide of Native Americans by small pox infested
blankets, must be studied carefully and remembered for everyone’s
sake. Our children’s well being absolutely depends on it.