By Aleksandra Kołeczek, Ostra Zieleń/Polish Young Greens There are hardly any Jews left in Poland nowadays, but the common past bounded us for good. The most painful and terrible event in that past – the Holocaust, dominates our relations. Around one hundred thousand Jews visit Poland every year to visit concentration camps and memorials commemorating…
Tag: Holocaust

The Swedish Tongue and the Holocaust: A Swedish hindsight 70 years later
By Anna Tranberg, Swedish Young Greens In 1943 the Israeli poet Natan Alterman wrote a poem of gratitude to thank Sweden and the Swedes for opening their borders for Jewish refugees. “And while Sweden declared: ‘Let them in!’ while referring To the exiled Jews who were running away, The entire Swedish people couldn’t speak or…

The Holocaust from a Floridian: An American hindsight 70 years later
It was 1998 and I was eight years old living in Jacksonville, Florida, USA. For a school assignment, we were to choose historical figures and give presentations and introduce ourselves as if we were them. I had chosen Anne Frank as I had just finished reading her diary and it seemed like a great choice….

The Holocaust In the Eyes of My Grandmother: An American hindsight 70 years later
By Guy Tabachnick (photo of Lucy and Friends in Rivoli, Italy in a Displaced Persons Camp, ca 1946-47. Taken from www.lucymandelstam.com) Last week, my mom sent me video of her mother’s testimony given in 1989 at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial. It’s on YouTube now, in three hour-long sections: my grandmother’s childhood in Vienna; the…

Porajmos, an excluded part of the Holocaust: A Czech hindsight 70 years later
By Josef Šmída, Member of the Executive Committee of the Federation of Young European Greens One of the biggest horrors in human history ever is the Holocaust. A genocide of human diversity widely known as a genocide of Jews in the name of Nazi ideology before and during the WWII. A nightmare which afterwards gave…

Never Again! Never Fascism: The European Hindsight 70 Years Later
By Michael Bloss, Co-Spokesperson for the Federation of Young European Greens The day of the liberation of Auschwitz was a cornerstone to the end of the worst time in European history. Its survivors, freed by the Soviet army, coined the famous slogan: „Never Again!“ – a parole that inspired generations of anti-fascist activists in the…

The Holocaust: A Greek hindsight 70 years later
By Dimitrios Moschos, member of the Coordination Committee of Neoi Prasinoi (photo of the Holocaust Memorial in Greece) The Nazi savagery took a heavy toll from Greece during WWII. An estimated 5-10% of the country’s population was killed during the war, while the country’s Jewry had 77% of its members murdered in German concentration camps….