With tattoos, young Israelis bear scars of Holocaust scars of relatives

[Brickbat]

JERUSALEM — When Eli Sagir showed her grandfather, Yosef Diamant, the new tattoo on her left forearm, he bent his head to kiss it.

Mr. Diamant had the same tattoo, the number 157622, permanently inked on his own arm by the Nazis at Auschwitz. Nearly 70 years later, Ms. Sagir got hers at a hip tattoo parlor downtown after a high school trip to Poland. The next week, her mother and brother also had the six digits inscribed onto their forearms. This month, her uncle followed suit.

“All my generation knows nothing about the Holocaust,” said Ms. Sagir, 21, who has had the tattoo for four years. “You talk with people and they think it’s like the Exodus from Egypt, ancient history. I decided to do it to remind my generation: I want to tell them my grandfather’s story and the Holocaust story.”

Mr. Diamant’s descendants are among a handful of children and grandchildren of Auschwitz survivors here who have taken the step of memorializing the darkest days of history on their own bodies. With the number of survivors here dropping to about 200,000 from 400,000 a decade ago, institutions and individuals are grappling with how best to remember the Holocaust — so integral to Israel’s founding and identity — after those who lived it are gone.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/01/world/middleeast/with-tattoos-young-israelis-bear-holocaust-scars-of-relatives.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

I found this fascinating and moving.

[MADem]

1. That is one piece of history we never want to be condemned to re-learn.

I, too, worry about teaching that most important piece of our world's history. Anytime I hear anyone who delves into "denier" territory, I become exorcised. There are way too many people who don't know anything about it, who think Hitler or the Japanese were one of the allies, and the stupidity is just...distressing.

Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia...when are we gonna learn?

[HopeHoops]

2. Coming soon to a US Capitol building near you. Those who hate will never change.

The sad answer is that the world will never learn. Eliminating one evil regime simply gives rise to another. As a species, we're not just our own worst enemies, but the worst enemy of everything on earth. It has been thus for all recorded time.