10/30/2023: Did We Not Learn Our Lessons?

Antisemitism and islamophobia need to stop

I recently read The Happiest Man on Earth: The Beautiful Life of an Auschwitz Survivor by Eddie Jaku. I avoided reading Holocaust survivor stories. A few years ago, I read Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. I didn’t know what that book was about when I picked it up. I thought it was a philosophy book but I was in shock and disbelief after reading that book. I vaguely knew the statistics that six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust but way more people died during the Great Leap Forward so I didn’t give it much thought. But When a survivor told his personal experience, I came to understand the gravity of the situation.  Viktos Frankl’s story was heartbreaking and it gave me chills that a democratically elected government could commit such heinous and organized crimes to its citizens. In a way, it changed my worldview. I realized when institutions get hollowed out and taken over by bad actors, hell can happen and it’s always the powerless civilians that suffer the most severe consequences.

I picked up this book because the title implies this is a story with a happy ending. But boy, the story is as striking as Viktor Frankl’s and in a way it’s worse. It’s not just that his parents were gassed by Nazis and he was tortured and almost starved to death in Auschwitz. He was experiencing antisemitism even after the war ended and the Holocaust was made known to the world. He had to move his family to Australia to escape antisemitism. He became the happiest man on earth because everyday feels like Heaven after Auschwitz…

The current environment is very unsettling since the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel. There’s a lot of horrid photos and pictures both on the Hamas attack and on the Israeli retaliation. There are enough heated arguments from both sides that I don’t feel qualified to comment. But I just want to point out that people are not their affiliations. It is devastating to see  people start pointing fingers to Jews or Palestinians. Most Jews and Palestinians are civilians that have no control over the war and I believe most just want to live their life peacefully. The narrative that directed blames on people’s ethnicities was the seed that eventually led to the Holocaust. We need to nip it in the bud and speak up against antisemitism and islamophobia right now before it’s too late.