Dear Friends,
My grandmother, Nadia, survived the Holocaust (Shoah). In her home, we spoke Yiddish and ate gefilte fish, but we never discussed what happened “over there”. For this reason, I do not know much about what happened to her during those difficult years. I know that she was born and grew up in Nasielsk, a town near Warsaw in Poland. With the outbreak of war, she fled and spent a period living in the Białystok Ghetto. She then managed to escape in Siberia where she worked in the tin industry in exchange for food.
Nadia returned to Poland after the war, where she gave birth to my mother and eventually made Aliyah to Israel in the 1950’s. Only after many years following her death, we learned that back “over there” before the war, she had a family and two little children. Since she never told us, we have never learned what became of them. It was a family secret, a silence, which grew alongside us, the second and third generation.
Since we did not discuss it at home, I received my education about the Shoah at school, and through literature and film. Point by point, I sketched in my imagination, the sheer magnitude of the tragedy. I hid in basements; I was nourished only on potato skins. I fled the Nazis, and I protected my family.
I assume that many of us — who grew up on the continuum between Shoah Memorial Day, the National Remembrance Day for Israel’s Fallen Soldiers and Civilian Victims, and Independence Day – experience this notion of mass extermination as part of our collective memory.
This collective memory influences every single one of us. For me personally, it drove me to lead a fight for Universal Human Rights. My personal decision to protect the right to equality, fairness, respect – for all men and women – is a result of my family history, and my sense of collective memory of the atrocities that were witnessed by my grandmother and others, just because they were Jews.
From my perspective, the lesson of “Never Again” is the responsibility that is incumbent on us all to protect Human Rights in every situation. No one should suffer “special” treatment just because they belong to a specific group.
I am not reinventing the wheel. In practice, the core documents and treaties protecting Human Rights in our time, were written against the backdrop of the atrocities of the Second World War. The widespread and chilling abuses of basic Human Rights during this period are what tempered the international community to ultimately accept that protecting Human Rights is a necessary condition for a new and healthy society.
We, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), as do other Human Rights groups, believe that the heritage of Human Rights is universal. Just as we were born equal, we are equal before the law, and we are entitled to equal access to opportunity. This is true for a child who is born in the periphery, a child who is born in the city, whether one is a member of the Arab minority in Israel, is elderly, is currently seeking refuge in Israel, or a member of any other group. Our role as Human Rights organizations is to pour light on the shadowy corners of our society, to seek out those who have been forgotten, and to insist that the strong do not dominate the weak.
We have no choice but to fight for justice, morality, and for human values; to ensure there is healthy dialogue between the family of nations. This is my grandmother’s legacy.
Yours,
Sharon
Sharon Abraham-Weiss
Executive Director
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel
