It has been 80 years since Auschwitz

(RNS) — It was a “one size fits all” day of Jewish mourning.

That is what I remember about the Jewish fast day of Tisha B’Av — the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, which Jews observe in mid-summer.

For me and my peers growing up, that meant Jewish summer camp. It meant that we spent the day mourning the destruction of the temples in Jerusalem, which happened on that date. But, along with that, our counselors threw in every other Jewish calamity in history — the expulsion from Spain in 1492, the Cossack pogroms and, especially, the Holocaust.

We had special ceremonies, services and programs. We deliberately injected this note of sadness into a fun-filled summer. The historian Salo Baron would have understood: It was the “lachrymose conception” of Jewish history.

“Lachrymose” is a good SAT word. It means tearful. That was the meaning of that day, and I suspect it became the meaning of Judaism that many of us would come to imbibe.

In the decades that followed, we “liberated” the Holocaust from Tisha B’Av, and we gave that European calamity its own days of memory. (At the same time, many of us have abandoned the term “Holocaust,” which means “burnt offering,” and embraced the Hebrew “shoah,” a biblical term for “catastrophe.” That is my preferred term, as well.)

Here is our calendar of memory. It starts weeks after the High Holy Days, and it goes through the Jewish year.

Each of these days has a message.

November 8-9 — Kristallnacht. The Night of Broken Glass, when Nazi thugs took to the streets of Germany and Austria — smashing the windows of Jewish shops and synagogues. They destroyed 267 synagogues throughout Germany and Austria. They destroyed over 7,000 Jewish-owned businesses. They arrested 30,000 Jewish men and put them into concentration camps. They murdered at least 91 Jews. There were at least 638 deaths by suicide.

What is the message? This is what they did to us. We were victims.

Yom Ha Shoah — the 27^th of Nisan. This is the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943. It was the largest single revolt by Jews during the war. The Jews knew that the uprising was doomed and their survival was unlikely. This past September, I spent the High Holy Days in Warsaw. My host walked me through the streets of the old ghetto (I was astonished as to how large it had been). He showed me buildings that were constructed on small hills.

“Those are not natural hills,” he said. “Those are mounds of rubble.”

Warsaw is built on rubble, as is much of Jewish history. During the uprising, 13,000 Jews died. How many German casualties? Perhaps 110.

Why did they even try? Because they would not allow the Germans alone to pick the time and place of our deaths. That is why in Israel the day is Yom Ha Zicharon L’Shoah — the day of remembering the Shoah — v’La-Gevurah — you cannot miss this piece — and heroism. (Why is the complete name of this sacred day lost to American Jews?)

What is the message? The Warsaw ghetto revolt, however hopeless, represents what we did for ourselves. We fought back.

And then there is today — Jan. 27 — International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

On this day in 1945 — 80 years ago — the Soviet army liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau. Some people would say that this marks the beginning of the end of the Holocaust.

Ah, but wait. Let us remember this day’s stated purpose — “to mark the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau and to honor the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of other victims of Nazism” (emphasis mine).

What is the message? This is what they — the Soviets — did for us — Jews and other inmates of Auschwitz — and by extension, all those who were caught up in the maelstrom of the Holocaust.

Kristallnacht, Yom Ha Shoah: Those are “Jewish” days.

But, apparently, there are many who worry the Holocaust will become (here comes that unnerving phrase): “too Jewish.” Don’t let the Jews have a monopoly on pain. Remember the other victims: In other words, this is not just about the Jews — it’s also about the Roma, whom many call gypsies; Jehovah’s Witnesses; gay men; labor leaders; Catholic priests; Slavs, among others killed by Nazis.

And, yes, going back to Warsaw: the Poles. If contemporary Poles seem very interested in the Holocaust (time to re-watch “A Real Pain”), there is a reason.

Auschwitz was a Polish killing field. The Nazis intended to turn the Poles into a permanent underclass of slaves. The losses were monumental.

For many years, I resisted International Holocaust Remembrance Day. I did not want to rush to universalize the Holocaust. Yes, others died, but for Jews, it remains unique.

Now, I recognize the necessity of this day. The world needs a day to remember what happened — especially because so many people will now deny (“It didn’t happen”); minimize (“It happened, but the numbers were far smaller than they say”); and the particularly pernicious propensity to relativize it (“Yes, it was bad, but look at what Israel is now doing”).

But, those other victims.

I am thinking of Dante’s Inferno, in which there were many circles of hell. There were many circles of hell in Hitler’s Inferno. In Hitler’s Inferno, the Jews occupied the very center of hell.

But there were other circles of hell. There were concentric circles that extended outward to include many other victims, just as waves spread outward with diminishing intensity from a stone tossed into a lake. In order to fully comprehend the Jewish tragedy of our century, we must comprehend not only the core, but the ripple effects as well. And we do not diminish the power of the core when we start to understand the ripples of madness.

I now suggest a linguistic move.

When it comes to the destruction of the Jews — the  very center of hell — we should use the word “shoah,” the catastrophe. In Yiddish, the term is “khurbn,” from the Hebrew word churban, meaning a destruction that ends an era. I vastly prefer that term, but it has little chance of catching on.

But, when we speak of the other victims, we should use the term “Holocaust.”

And, today — International Holocaust Remembrance Day — is the day when I remember “them,” as well.

I suggest all Jews follow my lead.

Because the first victims of the Holocaust were not Jews. Those first victims were those with physical and mental disabilities. The “Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Disease” was proclaimed on July 14, 1933. On Sept. 1, 1933, the director of the “Racial-Policy Office” called compassion for people suffering from hereditary disease “false humanity” and a “sin against the Creator’s own laws of life.” The gassing of those with handicaps began in July, 1939 — three years before the declaration of the Final Solution.

Those killings stopped. Why? Because the Church protested their murders.

I believe the words of the late author, Julius Lester: “Our suffering is a long-stemmed rose that we hand to humanity.”

If we maintain that our deaths were utterly unique, then our story will not allow others to hear its lessons.

That is why this day — International Holocaust Remembrance Day — is worth marking.

Let it be the day when Jews tell their story to the world.