We Holocaust survivors’ children — who call ourselves second generation or 2G — are aware that except in history books, few epic tragedies seem to endure beyond the lives of the victims and perpetrators.

Elie Wiesel, said he thought the survivors’ children were in a privileged position.

”I believe a person who listens to a witness becomes a witness,” he said in an interview.

Survivors’ children such as I, have dedicated much of our lives to keeping their parents’ stories alive — by writing books, making films, even forming therapy groups. Calling ourselves 2nd generation Holocaust prolongs the need to remember the shoah . Yes, we are not the survivors, but hopefully we who are alive because they survived the Shoah, will use the term to keep the memory of the HOLOCAUST alive. from one generation to another.

RABBI DR. Bernhard Rosenberg

So many of the Holocaust survivors who I grew up with have passed away. They were all so important to me and they conveyed a special feeling that no others could. To the second and third generation I offer this comfort before the High Holidays.

I have been an orphan too long. My dad died over 35 years ago, my mother over 25. Recently I discovered that in addition to the death of most of my family in the Holocaust, I also had two half siblings. Recently I discovered family in ISRAEL from the holocaust. Never give up searching.

My story is similar to many of yours. I ask that G-d comfort us today as we remember parents and other loved ones. For those who possess holocaust guilt I pray you will listen to me. Most of us were too young to understand the misery experienced by our parents, we could not empathize nor did most of us ask the questions we could have. We simply were afraid of hurting our parents and could not bear seeing them suffer.

I have spent a lifetime trying to find out what I simply could have asked them about our family. I am certain many of you are in the same boat. I beg you, your parents and mine lived for us. They sacrificed everything for us.

REMEMBER the good you experienced with them. I will say Yizkor and Kaddish for those of you who can not go to a synagogue.

Love your families and your children and grandchildren. Look at them and have nachas. For those who do not have children or family, please seek friends today and give and receive love. For those who had a different experience, one filled with only joy and good memories, you are very fortunate. For those who experience pain and still do, I pray for you. G-d bless you all and may our loved ones rest in heaven. They already experienced Hell.

If you still have holocaust survivors who are alive, give them a hug and a kiss. G-d granted me a beautiful wife, 4 children and so far 14 grand children. My youngest went on Aliyah with his family. The newest baby was born in Jerusalem six months ago. I only wish my parents were alive to witness this nachas. I am not a psychologist but merely a 2G still struggling.

Many of you still have pain because you think you could have done more to help your parents or acted differently towards them. I learned years ago not to generalize 2Gs. It is very dangerous since some become very upset so I will only speak about myself. My personality manifests itself in my always having to be in control of every situation. When my father was dying thirty five years ago, I thought I could save his life by literally asking him to live for me.

My parents sacrificed everything for me. He died and I still have not forgiven myself for not producing a miracle. Regarding my mother, after my father’s death I did everything possible for her; she lived with us for many years, but I still feel I could have been more understanding and patient with her.

Please forgive yourselves Your parents would not want you in anguish.

The war with Amalek was not a one-time affair, to be forgotten as soon as it was over. The Jewish people are commanded by G‑d to always remember Amalek’s evil actions, and to destroy his memory utterly.

Torah is most explicit:
‘Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt; how he met you on the way, and cut down all the weak who struggled behind you, when you were weary and exhausted; and he did not fear G‑d. Therefore, when the L‑rd your G‑d will relieve you of all your enemies around you, in the land which the L‑rd your G‑d gives you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!’”

In essence, to forgive is also to forget, and, once again, we are reminded by G-d’s Command never to do so. Imbued in Torah are the instructions for leading an ethical life, and G-d provides us with the blueprints to do so through His laws and also with the Free Will to choose whether or not to follow the path He has set. Suffice it to say, if we are to choose to live by His laws, tolerance and forgiveness are not to apply to the incarnation of evil. Otherwise, we make no distinctions between good and evil or right from wrong, and there is nothing to set us apart, as the following passage clearly denotes:
Whoever is compassionate to the cruel will ultimately become cruel to the compassionate.

Iranian leadership in responding to criticisms of its program to acquire nuclear weapons, sounded much like Hitler when they proclaimed, “Israel must be wiped off the map!” and that the Holocaust is a “myth!” What’s most amazing to me is that this war with Amalek continues—that the world is still so concerned with the fate of Israel and the small number of Jews in the world who do not even amount to a percentage of error when calculating the world’s population. The rhetoric is apocalyptic, even Biblical. Why care about Israel and the Jews? It must be a spiritual struggle of the generations. The Torah then has been proven to be incredibly wise in warning us never to forget or worse, to underestimate Amalek the anti-Semite—no matter how he may appear.
ON Purim and we will read the story of how Haman, a descendant of Amalek, persuaded Achashveros, King of Persia, to destroy the Jews. But it’s also the story of our time! Once again Persia threatens to destroy the Jews, only this time its name has changed. We no longer call it Persia, we call it Iran. Do you know why?

There was a love fest between Hitler and Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Persia, from the moment Hitler came to power in 1933. The shah was enamored with the concept of the Aryan master race—especially because Nazi racial theorists referred to Aryan origins in the Proto-Indo-European lineage of Persia. So intense was the shah’s identification with the Third Reich that in 1935 he—can you believe this—renamed his ancient country “Iran,” which in Farsi means “Aryan!” From that point on, Iranians were constantly reminded that their country was bonded with Nazi Germany for all time.

During the war years, Iran became a haven and headquarters for Gestapo agents and German operatives. In Tehran’s marketplace, it was common to see placards that declared, “In heaven, Allah is your master. On Earth, it is Adolf Hitler!” (Edwin Black, 12/19/05, JTA) And so how could the president of Iran now deny that the Holocaust ever happened when his nation is named for Hitler’s master race?

Let there be no mistake, the ultimate agenda of Iran and Hamas—like that of Hitler’s Germany—is not simply the destruction of Israel, but of the Jewish people.

. The Torah is clear, Amalek and Haman and all of Jewish history teach us that we must take our enemies for their word. They mean what they say and they say what they mean.

Related article >> Purim, the Holocaust and today’s Amalek

By: Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/368414

Related article >> Legacy of the Mufti and Hitler: The facts that are known.
By: David Bedein & Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg
https://bernhardrosenberg.com/my-holocaust-articles/ /..

What’s most amazing is that this war with Amalek continues—that the world is still so concerned with the fate of Israel and the small number of Jews in the world who do not even amount to a percentage of error when calculating the world’s population.

My motto is never again, never forget, and never forgive. While some have criticized me for never forgiving the Nazis for what they did to my family, it is precisely this hatred that makes me the fighting Rabbi I am. I refuse to forgive. This is what motivates me to speak out against injustice wherever it may be found.

Yes, I hate the extremist Muslims because they are the new Nazis. They murder Muslims, Christians, Jews, and people of all different backgrounds and faiths. This week is Purim, a time in which we remember how Haman wanted to murder all Jews. The Hitlers and Hamans are alive and well today and continue resounding
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Yes, I hate the extremist Muslims because they are the new Nazis. They murder Muslims, Christians, Jews, and people of all different backgrounds and faiths.
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their pledge to annihilate Jews in both Israel and throughout the Diaspora.

As the Mishnah teaches us:

For sins against G d, the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) brings forgiveness. For sins against one’s neighbor, the Day of Atonement brings no forgiveness until one has become reconciled with one’s neighbor.

In order to forgive another human being, that person must first ask for forgiveness, but “turn the other cheek” is not innate to Judaic principle. In Judaism repentance ( Shuvah) is a process of introspection and authentic remorse, which must be manifest and demonstrated through actual deeds — by a recognizable transformation. In other words, true Shuvah means, given the same set of circumstances, one will not return to the evil actions and deeds that prompted the initial behavior. By doing so, we can move closer to G-d, and He is forgiving, as is conveyed in the following Talmudic Tractate, Yoma, 85b:

A king had a son who had gone astray from him on a journey of hundred days. His friends said to him, ‘Return to your father.’ He said, ‘I cannot.’ Then his father sent a message to him, saying, ‘Return as far as you can, and I will come the rest of the way to you.’ In a similar way, G d says, ‘Return to me and I will return to you.’”

The above Tractate imparts a significant lesson about the individual’s responsibility to build a personal relationship with G-d, which is through demonstrable remorse and action — through a conscious return to the laws and the path He provides in the Torah.

Yet, there are some things beyond us to personally forgive. Thus, Rabbi or not, it is not my personal obligation or place to forgive the atrocities that the Nazis committed when they wiped out most of my family or for me to judge and decide their sense of remorse and whether or not the deeds of another reflect a genuine transformation. That is between them and G-d alone.

Nevertheless, right before the day of Purim, the Commandment “Zachor Et Amalek, “Remember Amalek” ( Devarim 25:17-19; Sanhedrin 20b), resounds, reminding us not to forget the harsh lessons we learned from the Amalekite, the descendants of Esau, when in the desert from Egypt and when Saul took pity on Agag, the Amalekite king, sparing his life but disobeying G-d’s Command to destroy every last one, and, analogously, the incarnation of evil. The Lubavitcher Rebbe expands on this concept in “ The Everlasting Battle: Parshas Zachor“:

The war with Amalek was not a one-time affair, to be forgotten as soon as it was over. The Jewish people are commanded by G d to always remember Amalek’s evil actions, and to destroy his memory utterly. Torah is most explicit:

enlarge
So intense was the shah’s identification with the Third Reich that in 1935 he—can you believe this—renamed his ancient country “Iran,” which in Farsi means “Aryan!”
enlarge
‘Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt; how he met you on the way, and cut down all the weak who struggled behind you, when you were weary and exhausted; and he did not fear G d. Therefore, when the L rd your G d will relieve you of all your enemies around you, in the land which the L rd your G d gives you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!’”

In essence, to forgive is also to forget, and, once again, we are reminded by G-d’s Command never to do so. Imbued in Torah are the instructions for leading an ethical life, and G-d provides us with the blueprints to do so through His laws and also with the Free Will to choose whether or not to follow the path He has set. Suffice it to say, if we are to choose to live by His laws, tolerance and forgiveness are not to apply to the incarnation of evil. Otherwise, we make no distinctions between good and evil or right from wrong, and there is nothing to set us apart, as the following passage clearly denotes:

Whoever is compassionate to the cruel will ultimately become cruel to the compassionate.

Iranian leadership in responding to criticisms of its program to acquire nuclear weapons, sounded much like Hitler when they proclaimed, “Israel must be wiped off the map!” and that the Holocaust is a “myth!”

What’s most amazing to me is that this war with Amalek continues—that the world is still so concerned with the fate of Israel and the small number of Jews in the world who do not even amount to a percentage of error when calculating the world’s population. The rhetoric is apocalyptic, even Biblical. Why care about Israel and the Jews? It must be a spiritual struggle of the generations. The Torah then has been proven to be incredibly wise in warning us never to forget or worse, to underestimate Amalek the anti-Semite—no matter how he may appear.

On Purim and we will read the story of how Haman, a descendant of Amalek, persuaded Achashveros, King of Persia, to destroy the Jews. But it’s also the story of our time! Once again Persia threatens to destroy the Jews, only this time its name has changed.

We no longer call it Persia, we call it Iran. Do you know why?

There was a love fest between Hitler and Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Persia, from the moment Hitler came to power in 1933. The shah was enamored with the concept of the Aryan master race—especially because Nazi racial theorists referred to Aryan origins in the Proto-Indo-European lineage of Persia. So intense was the shah’s identification with the Third Reich that in 1935 he—can you believe this—renamed his ancient country “Iran,” which in Farsi means “Aryan!” From that point on, Iranians were constantly reminded that their country was bonded with Nazi Germany for all time.

During the war years, Iran became a haven and headquarters for Gestapo agents and German operatives. In Tehran’s marketplace, it was common to see placards that declared, “In heaven, Allah is your master. On Earth, it is Adolf Hitler!” (Edwin Black, 12/19/05, JTA)

And so how could the president of Iran now deny that the Holocaust ever happened when his nation is named for Hitler’s master race?

Let there be no mistake, the ultimate agenda of Iran and Hamas—like that of Hitler’s Germany—is not simply the destruction of Israel, but of the Jewish people.

The Torah is clear, Amalek and Haman and all of Jewish history teach us that we must take our enemies for their word. They mean what they say and they say what they mean.

ENGLISH CORNER, CON LINDA JIMÉNEZ – This week’s trivia question: What is unique about Holocaust education in the state of New Jersey?

For more than 35 years, the charismatic rabbi, author and teacher, Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg, has been one of the pioneering voices for Holocaust and Genocide Education. Working in the Jewish and secular communities, he has been fighting for human rights, respectful Holocaust commemoration and preventing genocide.

Rabbi Rosenberg is the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth-El in Edison, New Jersey. He received his ordination and Doctorate of Education from Yeshiva University in New York. Rabbi Rosenberg also possesses A.A., B.A., M.A. and M.S. degrees in communication and education, and a Doctor of Divinity from The Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. Rabbi Rosenberg has taught Public Speaking at Rutgers University in New Jersey and Yeshiva University in New York; and also a graduate course in Holocaust at Rutgers University. He has also served on the New Jersey State Holocaust Commission as interfaith chairman.

Dr. Rosenberg has received several awards for his work, including the Chaplain of the Year Award from the New York Board of Rabbis for his efforts during and following 9/11, and the Rabbi Israel Mowshowitz Award, established by the New York Board of Rabbis to honor rabbis who excel in public service. He appears frequently on radio and television, has published numerous books and hundreds of articles regarding the Holocaust and recently authored the Rosenberg Holocaust Siddur and the Rosenberg Holocaust Haggadah. We spoke with Rabbi Rosenberg about his work in Holocaust and Genocide education, and also about his new book, Echoes of the Holocaust.

Rabbi Rosenberg would welcome more personal Holocaust memoirs and stories from the Sephardic communit.

Listen to the interview https://www.radiosefarad.com/rabbi-dr-bernhard-rosenberg-holocaust-educator/

Anti-Semitism may start small, but it grows exponentially in a short time Time to learn from history.

On November 9th 1938, mobs burned synagogues, destroyed Jewish homes and businesses, vandalized Jewish hospitals, orphanages and cemeteries, and dragged thousands of Jewish men, women and children into the streets, where they were beaten and humiliated.

The Germans later called this night “Kristallnacht” – The Night of Broken Glass – because of the tons of shattered glass that scattered throughout German cities, after it had taken place.

The Jews began to call that date the beginning of the Holocaust because of the tremendous violence, which started on that night and grew even more dreadful as time had passed. The cost of the broken window glass alone came to millions of Reichsmarks.

The Reich confiscated any compensation claims that insurance companies paid to Jews. The rubble of ruined synagogues had to be cleared by the Jewish community. The Nazi government imposed a collective fine of one billion Reichsmarks (about $400 million in 1938) on the Jewish community. After assessing the fine, Hermann Göring remarked: “The swine won’t commit another murder. Incidentally…I would not like to be a Jew in Germany.”

To what murder was he referring?

On November 7, 1938, the Third Secretary of the German embassy in Paris, Ernst Von Rath, was shot dead by Herschel Grynzpan, a 17 year old German-Jewish refugee. Herschel wanted to avenge his parent’s brutal expulsion, together with 15,000 other Polish Jews from Germany to Zbonszym. Herschel Grynszpan carried a revolver and thoughts of revenge with him as he walked through the streets of Paris on the morning of November 7, 1938. The 17-year-old German refugee had just learned that his Polish-Jewish parents, along with thoses thousands of other Jews, had been herded into boxcars and deported from Germany.

From the day Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933, anti-Semitism had become encoded in the governmental policies of Nazi Germany. For years, Jews experienced state-sponsored discrimination and persecution, and Grynszpan had seen enough.

The young man who had emigrated to France two years earlier walked into the German Embassy on Rue de Lille in search of the German ambassador. When Grynszpan was informed that the ambassador was out on his daily walk, he was brought in to meet with diplomat Ernst vom Rath. Pulling out his revolver, Grynszpan fired five times at vom Rath and shouted, “You are a filthy kraut, and here, in the name of 12,000 persecuted Jews, is your document!”

Hitler sent his personal physicians to Paris to treat vom Rath, but two days later the diplomat died from his wounds. The Nazi regime found the murder to be a welcome excuse to launch a vast pogrom against the Jews living inside its borders. Until then, Nazi policies toward the Jews, such as boycotts and deportations, had been primarily nonviolent, but that all changed in the hours after vom Rath took his last breath.

The German government attempted to disguise the violence of those two days as a spontaneous protest on the part of the “Aryan” population. But, in reality, Kristallnacht was organized by the Nazi chiefs and their thugs with technical skill and precision. The Nazi chiefs commanded the Gestapo and the storm troopers to incite mob riots throughout Germany and Austria.

Kristallnacht marked the beginning of the plan, to rob the Jews of their possessions for the benefit of the Reich and then to sweep them forever from the German scene. Furthermore, thereafter, Jews had no place in the German economy, and no independent Jewish life was possible, with the dismissal of cultural and communal bodes and the banning of the Jewish press.

During the week after Kristallnacht, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s Berlin reporter called that night “The worst outbreak of anti-Jewish violence in modern German History.”

During Kristallnacht, over 1,100 synagogues were destroyed, as well as 7,500 Jewish businesses and countless Jewish homes. Several hundred Jews were killed and 30,000 wee arrested and sent to the concentration camps at Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald and Dachau, where thousands more died.

Today, many historians can trace a pattern of events, occurring before that night, that would suggest that such an atrocity was to happen. In 1933, when the Nazis took power, German anti-Semitism adopted quasi-legal forms. One of the new anti-Jewish forms of action, which had began with the Nuremberg laws of 1935, included the separation of the Jews from the daily structure of German life. The Jews, systematically, were deprived of their civil rights; they were isolated from the general populace through humiliating identification measures. The Nazis boycotted the Jewish shops and took away their jobs. Then they made the Jews declare the value of their possessions. The Civil Service and the police often arrested the Jews and forced them to sell their property for a pittance.

One may ask, how could the entire world stand by and allow such a disaster to occur? The fascist or authoritative regimes in Italy, Rumania, Hungary and Poland were governments which approved of this pogrom and wanted to use the pogrom as a case to make their own anti-Semitic policies stronger in their individual countries. The three Great Western powers – Great Britain, France and the United States – said the appropriate things but did nothing to save the Jews.

Hitler, in the late 1930’s told the world to take the Jews but there was just no one willing to take them in. In the USA, President Roosevelt and his administration kept on expressing their shock over the terrible events which were occurring in Germany and Austria, but when it came time to act and help save the refugees by bringing them to the United States, the United States government refused and replied by saying that they have no intention to allow more immigrants to enter the country.

Kristallnacht teaches us many things. Among them that we must remain vigilant and not permit even the smallest seed of anti-Semitism to take root.

Read article in Israel National News – Arutz Sheva