Never Again. The phrase graces hundreds of Instagram stories and posts come Yom HaShoah each year. The phrase people shake their heads and mutter after another anti semitically charged shooting. Never again we say. But how? How do we ensure that something like the atrocities of the Holocaust never occurs again? And to that loaded question, I answer, remembrance. 

Memory is not a foreign concept for us. The instance of a Jewish grandparent sitting down with their grandchildren recalling a story from long ago is quite frequent. Our religion is founded on the concept of collective memory and remembrance. The memory of a covenant between Abraham and God. The memory of our exodus from Egypt and the spiritual awakening at Mount Sinai. Our memories are the nourishment that has lasted us through centuries of persecution. They define us. They save us. 

As the number of survivors still with us dwindles and we are tasked with teaching the next generation leaders about the atrocities of the Holocaust without their first-hand accounts, we must teach them not to remember the destruction but to remember what was destroyed and to revitalize and commemorate the culture and lives lost. Teach them to say 6,000,001 lives lost as each one of those numbers was a dreamer, an artist, an athlete, a writer, a scholar, and someone’s child. To preserve our ancestor’s legacies, our religion, and above all, democracy, we must never forget. To ensure never again, we must never forget. 

Further readings: 

Ross, L., n.d. The Importance of Remembering | My Jewish Learning. [online] My Jewish Learning. [Accessed 5 April 2021].

Tomlin, C., 2021. Why It’s Still Important to Remember the Holocaust – The Arc. [online] Tyndale.com. [Accessed 5 April 2021].

Hannah Goldwin is a Junior at Walter Payton College Prep and plays tennis as well as dabbles in ultimate frisbee and basketball. She leads clubs devoted to Alzheimer’s awareness, Jewish Community, and the discussion of a top notch educational show, the Bachelor. She watches football religiously and recently graduated from the Diller Teen Fellowship.