Holocaust Remembrance Day

Of all days, Holocaust Remembrance Day is the one that must remind all men and women of good faith why tolerance is such a crucial aspect to modern society. Six million men, women and children were slaughtered in the 1930’s and 1940’s in Nazi Germany simply because they were of a different race and a different faith.

The Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah) seeks to commemorate the Holocaust, a systematic and state-planned program to murder millions of Jews and other minority groups in Europe. This program of mass killing was run by the German Nazis in the 1930s and 40s during the Second World War, where Jews and minorities were brought into concentration camps and murdered at the hands of Nazi officials.

This observance seeks to remember and honor the victims of the Holocaust, including six million Jews and thousands of Russians gypsies, homosexuals, disabled persons and other minorities.[1]

When I served as Grand Master of Minnesota Masons in 2009-2010, I wrote a blog on my travels.[2]  Most Thursdays, I blogged on tolerance issues and on Holocaust Remembrance Day, April 21, 2009, I wrote this:

After the War, the cry went out: NEVER AGAIN!

And yet, genocide has happened again. And again, and again.

In Rwanda. In the Killing Fields of Cambodia. In Bosnia-Herzevogina. In the Sudan.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke)

Masons[3] state that they are good men, striving to be better. It therefore behooves us to take a stand against intolerance, which is the first step toward genocide.

Light a candle tonight. Say a prayer for the victims of the Holocaust.

Pledge anew: NEVER AGAIN. And let’s mean it this time.[4] 

The sentiments are as true in 2017 as they were in 2009.  Intolerance is the first (of many) steps toward genocide.  And even if it were conclusively shown that it would not lead to genocide here and now, it still behooves men and women of good faith to call out and oppose intolerance.

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[1] http://www.wincalendar.com/Holocaust-Remembrance-Day

[2] If you’re interested, you can still find those blogs at http://mngrandmaster09.blogspot.com/

[3] Jews were not the only group persecuted by the Nazis.  There were many, including Freemasons.

[4] The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website has an excellent article on the persecution of Freemasons and Lodges under the Nazi regime.  While nowhere near as horrific as the persecution of the Jews, it nonetheless is important.  See the web article here.