Eielson remembers the Holocaust

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Nora Anton
  • 354th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska --  During April, people around the world remembered and observed the genocide occurring from1933-45. 

Eielson observed the Holocaust April 25 when Ms. Pam Smith--an educator for Troy University, Ala. and Florida Virtual School-- spoke about the origins of hatred, dangers of stereotyping and scapegoating and also genocide, with main emphasis on the Holocaust. 

An expert Holocaust researcher, Ms. Smith spoke about the torture and slaying of six million Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses, Gypsies, the disabled, people of Slavic origins and any other persons the Nazis considered "racially inferior." 

"The Holocaust didn't have to happen," said the 20-year educator, "but it happened because people didn't know how to react to the hatred of the Nazis." 

In 2000, Ms. Smith completed a fellowship through the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. The goal of the fellowship was to increase people's own personal understanding of the Holocaust and the role that intolerance, ignorance and prejudice played in this tragic period in history. She also enhanced her knowledge and understanding of the Jewish religion and culture as it is practiced in the United States. 

"Teaching and preaching tolerance and understanding of cultures different from our own is one thing, but living and experiencing that tolerance and understanding is vastly different." 

She said the fellowship provided her with an opportunity to immerse herself "in the recorded history and artifacts of museums, to hear the firsthand accounts of those who have suffered from the injustice and prejudice and intolerance, and learn from the experts of another culture so that we can internalize the ideals that we so want to share with our students." 

Ms. Smith spoke of the legacies that were taken from the world so carelessly during WWII and consequentially, the losses in a very important generation. 

She spoke intently on survivor's legacies, ignorance and things mankind today can do to make a difference. 

"Ignorance magnifies discrimination and hatred," she said. "I hope people realize that individuals and individual efforts really do make a difference." 

She said each survivor has a legacy and explained that Prof. (Dr.) Liviu Librescu, 76, a Romanian Holocaust survivor recently sacrificed his life to save his students by barricading the door while they climbed out the windows of the classroom during the Virginia Tech. shootings of April 16. 

"One of our nation's top five aeronautical engineers was shot and killed during the Virginia Tech shootings," she explained. 

"He blocked the door as long as he could," she said. "Nobody in his classroom was killed, just him." 

He left a legacy, she said, and all of his students are now a part of that legacy too.
"We are all responsible for each other," Ms. Smith added.