In Memoriam: Stephen T. Johns

Stephen T. Johns died yesterday heroically defending one of the most important sites in the world, the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D. C. He was gunned down in cold blood by a man unable to bear the presence of such a museum, one dedicated to proving the awful destructiveness of hate. Mr. Johns died protecting others, and if not for his actions and those of his colleagues, we can only imagine how many visitors to the museum might have died.

I urge everyone who reads this to learn the lesson that was enacted again yesterday, in minature. Hatred is a destructive force. It accomplishes nothing but killing. It deserves only enough attention to understand why it must be avoided. The important story is that of Stephen Johns, who gave his own life in order to save others. That is a legacy which is worthy of being remembered, and I urge all of you to keep Stephen Johns and his family in your thoughts and your prayers, and to remember his sacrifice.

Although what is important was how Mr. Johns, as an individual, acted yesterday, and although I know most of my readers understand this anyway, I do want to make one other point. Mr. Johns happened to be a black man. His murderer was white, someone who endorsed the absurd belief that that single fact, the colour of his skin, made him somehow superior. However, his own actions and those of Mr. Johns yesterday give the lie, once and for all, to that belief.

It is ironic this bigot proved exactly what he would have liked to disprove, but I think it is important to take note of this. A white man, convinced this fact alone made him superior, proved by his own actions he was inferior to the black man he confronted. Superiority is not conferred by skin colour, race, heritage, or anything other than what each of us, as individuals, chooses to do and how we choose to act. And the fact a self professed "genius" could overlook the way in which what he planned to do would demonstrate how very wrong he was illustrates, clearly, how little anyone really learns who chooses to blame all their frustrations on a scapegoat.

I'm very, very sorry Stephen Johns had to die proving that lesson, which most of us already understood, once again, but I'd like to think, if it had to happen anyway, he would be pleased to know his actions did affirm just how dreadful a lie racism and bigotry really are. And if even one person who reads this finally understands the reality of this important lesson for the first time, perhaps some small good can come out of such a great tragedy.

And, although I hardly dare hope so, if this incident, which so emphatically establishes just what pathetic losers all those people are who believe in any sort of racial supremacy, reverses the spread of hate groups through our society like cancer, I hope Stephen Johns will at least be remembered as the man whose heroism brought it about. Whatever the outcome, he deserved better. From now on, when I hear the phrase "only the good die young", the name of Stephen T. Johns will be added to the list of those who come to mind. May God bless you and may you rest in peace, Mr. Johns.

The World Is Poorer Tonight

Tonight, the world is a poorer place, since the death earlier today of Irena Sendler. In the midst of World War II, in Nazi occupied Poland, Irena Sendler dared to risk her own life to save the lives of roughly 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto. She was a social worker who stood up to the Nazi authorities and insisted on inspecting sanitary conditions in the ghetto.

On her visits there, she invented various ingenious ways of smuggling out babies, young children, and even teenagers. For those who do not know, in 1943, facing what they knew was certain death, the inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto began to fight back. Untrained, with only limited, smuggled weaponry, they managed to tie up an impressive number of supposedly superior German soldiers armed with all the powerful tools of death the Nazi state could give them.

Finally, the Nazis admitted they couldn't stand up to the Jews face to face, even with superior weapons to back them up, and they pulled back. They shelled and bombed the ghetto into ruins, then surged in with overwhelming force to pump deadly gas into the sewers and cellar holes where survivors might be hiding.

In other words, of those who lived in the Warsaw ghetto, there were very few survivors. Of that number, 2,500 and their descendants owe their lives to Irena Sendler. Later, arrested by the Gestapo, she stood up to their torture rather than betray the names of those who helped her, and bore the scars of that torture on her body until the day she died.

Although she lived in obscurity for most of her life, and was embarrassed at the attention she finally received in her old age when her story was remembered, this was a woman we could all learn from, a woman worthy of admiration. The world is always in desperate need of more people like her. Anyone who believes in goodness and decency should mourn her loss tonight.

As we mourn, I think she would approve of this advice: learn from her life, from her love, from her courage. Stand up to help the weak, rescue the endangered, and protect the persecuted. Do what you can to make the world a better place. Look up to the true heroes: they aren't the richest men among us, or the most beautiful women. They aren't business leaders or celebrities. They are quiet heroes, who do what they can and expect no reward. Irena Sendler, may you rest in peace.

What Caused the Virginia Tech Shooting?

Variations of this question have been asked in the media ever since the news broke, yet not once have they considered the one obvious cause. Before I point out the Emperor's shocking and in this case pornographic nudity, let me briefly dispose of some of the more idiotic aspects of what some segments of the media have suggested. First. they insist on looking for his "reason" as if they're going to find some answer that makes sense to everyone.

I hope you can agree that any "reason" for such a massacre will, by definition, not make sense. If something like that can make sense to you, you scare me. It's that simple. There are no reasons for something like that. I understand those who must evaluate others' potential for such violence need to learn all they can, but why would the rest of us even want to understand something so shocking, so alien to the rest of us (I hope).

It offends me suggestions have been made this happened either because of his race or nationality, or because of hints he may have been diagnosed with autism. None of those have anything to do with it. Blaming one individual's actions on any group is a terrible and a foolish idea. Yet some insist on pointing to incidental characteristics to provide an "explanation".

If such comments have merit, why, when "normal" white Americans commit such crimes, isn't it suggested it was because they were a normal white American? Such red herrings are dragged out whenever possible simply because bigotry is always seeking excuses to justify itself. It is time everyone, and especially those in the media, learned that lesson, stopped adding fuel to the fires of bigotry, and tried sticking to relevant facts instead.

While less repulsive, the suggestion that he was bullied has no more merit. Many people are bullied, some much worse than anything hinted at in this case, and yet never decide to randomly shoot as many people as they can. For the ultimate proof, look at one of the victims, Liviu Librescu. This man, a Holocaust survivor, endured tragedies and terrors so great, just contemplating his childhood is enough to wake nightmares.

Yet, with such a background, what was his choice? To, instead of killing the innocent, sacrifice his own life to protect as many as he could. If his experiences did not drive him to commit mass murder, then his example should forever silence the whining of those who say "you drove me to it" as they slaughter random victims and those whose "offences" were much less than murder.

Why did the shooter do it? Although many of those who have done the same thing before probably had similar motives, he was extremely open about it. He sent a package containing his "reasons" to NBC. He wanted people to question what they'd done. He wanted them to feel the guilt for his crimes. And he wanted the media to look for and publicize "his side of the story". He wanted them to promote him as a "martyr".

In other words, he was a spoiled little brat who decided he'd "show everybody", no matter what the cost. He considered those who "celebrated" Hitler's birthday with a massacre to be "martyrs", and he considered that he was one, too. Perhaps the media coverage of the murders at Columbine High helped shape such an arrogant attitude. Certainly, he expected and wanted media coverage himself.

And, what did the media do? They claimed they had no choice, that it was "breaking news", and so they aired his repulsive and obscene rants. They gave him exactly what he wanted. In a sense, they repaid him for providing them with a big story by giving him what he implicitly asked for in return. They may not have driven him to it, but they probably encouraged his attitude, and they certainly rewarded his actions.

Whoever the next shooter is, the media coverage of this story has no doubt encouraged them to continue thinking everyone else is "driving them to it". It has reinforced their belief they will become a "martyr". And it has shown them that, if they want the world to hear "their side", the media will give them just that. Although every individual is responsible for whatever they decide to do, in many ways the media is responsible for encouraging further shootings.

What could they have done differently? They could have covered "breaking news" by ignoring the whining self-proclaimed martyr who caused so much pain and loss, and focusing attention on those who deserve it instead. Yes, most if not all of you have heard of Liviu Librescu, but why haven't you heard more about him than about the shooter? His example, of decency and self-sacrifice in the face of hatred and tragedy, is one worth paying attention to.

Letters by Otto Frank to be Released 14 February

Although it is my understanding this will not be formally announced until the 14th of February, an important story has been revealed on several mailing lists. Two years ago, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York was attempting to catalogue unindexed materiel in their possession. One of these files proved to contain roughly 80 letters, many written by Otto Frank himself, and all related to his efforts to secure some safe haven for his family.

If the reports are correct, the father of Anne Frank wrote letters to friends, family, aid organisations, and US officials. He was desperately trying to find some way to get his wife and daughters passage out of Holland to a place where they would be safe from the Nazi menace that ultimately killed them. Many of them were written in 1941, up until the date when Germany declared war on the US.

The file also includes letters from family members in the US, and from a friend Otto Frank made in his university days, Nathan Straus Jr., son of the founder of Macy's. The file is at least half an inch thick, and include documentation of Otto Frank's efforts to secure his family passage to the United States or Cuba. Since the US had closed their consulate in Holland, some of the letters discuss possibilities such as an escape through Spain, departing for North America by way of Portugal, which was neutral.

This file apparently originally came from the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, one of the organisations that sought to help Jews seeking to flee a Europe darkened by the clouds of rising Nazi oppression. Sadly, the letters do not seem to have ever received a reply, probably due to the unforgiving nature of US immigration policy, which condemned many Jews to their deaths who might otherwise have been saved. It is a reminder of our past many of us are ashamed of, yet one we must not forget. We may not be able to alter that past, but we can make sure we don't repeat its mistakes.

The letters have been held at YIVO since at least 1974, when the last of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society's archives was transferred to their care. No one was aware of their presence in these archives, and they were only discovered two years ago. Their existence has remained a secret since YIVO felt it necessary to consider the legal implications of this find. It is appalling such an important find should have to be kept hidden from the world for so long for such a trivial reason, but I can hardly blame YIVO for fearing entanglement with lawyers.

YIVO's plans are to hold a press conference and release the documents on the 14th of February. I hope the press will be well represented, and that they will give this story the importance it deserves. Whether or not it is the lead story on the evening news, I know I will be paying special attention to all news outlets on the 14th. Tears may not seem a good mix with Valentine's Day, but, for me at least, this is too important to put off.

Never Again!

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day set aside to remember the millions of innocent individuals who died in the Holocaust. They were singled out by a policy directed by mindless hatred, and exterminated with an enthusiasm that can only be described as maniacal. The Nazis believed that by wiping out Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and the disabled they would be somehow "purifying the race".

Perhaps the ultimate testimony to the tragic absurdity of the "science" which convinced them of this is the fact that, if those rules had been followed impartially, Adolf Hitler himself would have been classified as a Jew and deported to a camp. When the war was over, and the world was forced to confront the things they had ignored for so long, and see the consequences of ignorance, bigotry, and hatred, their response was "Never Again!".

Has this promise been kept? Look around you. In Cambodia, in the lands that were Yugoslavia, in Rwanda, in Darfur, and in so many other places I cannot bear to name them all, masses of human beings have been massacred for no better reason than the Nazis offered, and the world watched and did nothing. The Nazis sought to wipe out all trace of disabilities we now test pregnant mothers for, so their children can be aborted, denying them any chance to live at all. And it is nice and 'sanitary'; we don't need to confront the reality. "Fetuses", not babies, just as it was "the Final Solution", not mass murder. Anti-Semitism is on the rise, and has been for years, and few people speak out against it. There are even attempts to deny the Holocaust ever happened.

When you reflect on this day, know one thing for certain: it happened. In Bad Arolsen, in Germany, there is a massive archive with tons of papers, all original, and all proving, in the murderers' own hands, what the Nazis were guilty of. On millions of bookshelves, there is a book, the last remnant of a beautiful, talented girl who describes much of what was happening in her diary, which was saved when she was taken away to be killed. Her records are found in the archive in Bad Arolsen. The evidence is consistent, each piece confirms the others.

It happened. The only reason for denying that it happened is the wish to stir up the same kind of vicious, lying, murderous hatred that fueled the greatest tragedy the world has known to date. If you doubt, read the books, look at the pictures, view the films the Nazis themselves took. Some who deny the reality of what happened try to make excuses; yes, many died, but that was just due to disease the Germans were unable to control. They lie! The records in Bad Arolsen, records kept by the Nazis themselves, list victim after victim, and after their name, the notation "Executed".

Those who did die of disease did so because they were gathered together in unsanitary conditions, malnourished, and waiting to be executed with the others. Disease may have done the Nazis' work for them in some cases, but it can't spare them the blame for the outcome. If you don't already know, read about what happened. Research it. Learn all you can about it. And, when you are so sick that you understand "Never Again" may be the most important pledge the human race has ever made, speak out against hatred, against bigotry, against murder, wherever you find it, whatever interests try to excuse it.

The Jews were the primary victims of the Holocaust; I have no intention and no desire to deny that. But other groups were singled out, and if any group may be singled out, all groups live in danger. "Never Again" will be a hollow lie until every time an American spooking at shadows demands that all Moslems be killed, we all cry out in protest, Jew, Moslem, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, or anything else. It will be meaningless until we refuse to accept the singling out of any group to be 'cleansed', to be 'reduced', to be attacked in any way whatsoever.

I can think of no finer memorial to all the victims of the Holocaust, nor any so well suited to the occasion, as a society that takes "Never Again!" as the single most important thing we can guarantee our descendants. It is more important than a healthy planet, more important than a thriving economy, more important than any other type of freedom. Until all groups can feel sure that they are free to live, how can they enjoy any of these other things?

If you agree with my message, and believe it is as important as I do, feel free to link to it, or even to copy it. I am the rightful Copyright owner, but I give you permission to do so, with a single restriction. Lest some hateful group that opposes this ideal think of a way to twist my words, you may only copy this post if you copy it and reproduce it in its entirety. If you wish, you may highlight certain passages differently than I have done, so long as you leave my words unchanged, and you may omit any hyperlinks I have included. With that restriction, I encourage you to spread this post as far and wide as you are able.