To Bear Eternal Witness

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called, “To Bear Eternal Witness.”

I just finished reading a most gut-wrenching book, Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account by Dr. Miklos Nyiszli. I came across this book after learning that my wife’s grandmother had been selected by Dr. Josef Mengele (may his name be forever cursed) for torturous experiments at the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust. This New York Times Bestseller is a vivid eyewitness account by a Jewish forensic pathologist, who worked directly for Dr. Mengele, and tells of the unspeakable cruelty and horrors at Auschwitz, the largest Nazi death camp vastly accounting toward the twelve million people exterminated by the Nazis, six million of them Jews.

From my experience, once you pick up this book, you cannot put it down until you finish it completely, and I urge everyone to make this a must-read, especially as there will soon be no more Holocaust survivors to tell us, in-person, the hell that they lived through.

(Free Photo of Kyklon B Poison Gas via Pixabay)

Beautiful Anne Frank

In Remembrance of Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Observance) today:

This is a beautiful Hebrew song about Anne Frank who at age 13 went into hiding in Amsterdam from the Nazis.

For two years, they stayed in the attic…not being able to make a sound or open a window.

But she kept an amazing diary that preserves for us the life and suffering they went through. 

After 761 days, they were discovered and Anne Frank was was sent to Auschwitz Concentration Camp. 

Anne and her sister Margot died in Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp.

This child was beautiful and her story lives to remind us of the evil that we face and the survival that we all must.  😉

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Song:

Anne Frank’s Diary

Lyrics:

A book hides me.
And what, what a fear.
My father, my mother and my sister,
With the neighbors together.
We are all in silence and quiet,
With only the heart whispering whispers.
Here they hide from the soldiers,
Which our soul seeks.
My diary, my precious,
Oh Kitty, my friend.
Will I ever see a sunrise?
Will I find my death?
In the tiny rooms, From a suffocating feeling.
Cold days and clouds.
Nights of terror and silence.
It’s not true, it’s not right,
I want to laugh out loud.
Dance, sing and play,
I’m a child, all in all.
My diary, my precious …
There are terrible moments,
In our relations.
So crowded here in the apartment, Everything is closing in on us.
Food is also very lacking, The war within the city.
Will I live? Will I survive?
Do you still love and sing?
My diary, my precious …

From Holocaust To Holograms

My father told me last week how my mom had awoken in the middle of night full of fearful, vivid memories of the Holocaust.

In particular, she remembers when she was just a six year-old little girl, walking down the street in Germany, and suddenly the Nazi S.S. came up behind them and dragged her father off to the concentration camp, Buchenwald–leaving her alone, afraid, and crying on the street. And so started their personal tale of oppression, survival, and escape.

Unfortunately, with an aging generation of Holocaust survivors–soon there won’t be anyone to tell the stories of persecution and genocide for others to learn from.

In light of this, as you can imagine, I was very pleased to see the University of Southern California (USC) Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) and the USC Shoah Foundation collaborating on a project called “New Dimensions In Testimony” to use technology to maintain the enduring lessons of the Holocaust into the future.

The project involves developing holograms of Holocaust survivors giving testimony about what happened to them and their families during this awful period of discrimination, oppression, torture, and mass murder.

ICT is using a technology called Light Stage that uses multiple high-fidelity cameras and lighting from more than 150 directions to capture 3-D holograms.

There are some interesting videos about Light Stage (which has been used for many familiar movies from Superman to Spiderman, Avatar, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) at their Stage 5 and Stage 6 facilities.

To make the holograms into a full exhibit, the survivors are interviewed and their testimony is combined with natural language processing, so people can come and learn in a conversational manner with the Holocaust survivor holograms.

Mashable reports that these holograms may be used at the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. where visitors will talk “face-to-face” with the survivors about their personal experiences–and we will be fortunate to hear it directly from them. 😉

(Photo from USC ICT New Dimensions In Technology)

Leadership, Beyond Brainwashing and Beatings

Leading by decree rather than merit usually means that the people are either beaten or brainwashed into submission–this is oddly reminiscent of the age-old question, which is mightier, the pen or the sword?

History is full of examples of tyrants, dictators, and monarchs (this goes for some bosses at work too) who take “the throne” putting anyone who opposes them to either be put to death or be “reeducated.”

On one hand, the sword is straightforward though it comes in a thousand varieties–where those who oppose the ruler die:
– in open opposition on the battle field
– in public display in front of a firing squad, by hanging, or even by guillotine
– in more surreptitious ways such as with a knife in a back alley somewhere, languishing in a dungeon of old, thrown in a van from the streets with a hood over your head, or taken in the middle of the night never to be seen or heard from again, or even assassinated by anything from a well-placed bullet to a vial of radioactive poisoning

The sword of the dictator knows no mercy.

On the other hand, the pen is more shady and comes in but one form–where those who disagree with the power(s) that be are convinced to think otherwise. There are many examples from the gulag to the labor camp where reeducation, indoctrination, propaganda, brainwashing, hypnosis and other, harsher forms of mind control are employed.

As a child of Holocaust survivors, who lived through the Hitler rein of terror, I am keenly aware of the devastating impact that dictators can have by sword and by pen. Hitler (may his soul be cursed forever) used both to achieve and hold power, sending millions to die in concentration camps and brainwashing a generation of Germans into believing his rhetoric of hatred, superiority, and megalomaniac ideals for world domination.

This week, watching power pass in North Korea from father to son, now for a third generation gripping unto the leadership mantle there, the potential for abuse is certainly present, but there is certainly also the opportunity for positive change. It remains to be seen who this new leader really is and what he will stand for–especially since he is so young–only age 28 or 29.

Previously, I had read about the sword being used to hold unto power in that country with horrifying prison camps, such as the infamous Camp 22 with 50,000 prisoners (many of them political opponents) living under the most inhumane conditions.

This week, I watched on the news and YouTube, citizens apparently wailing over the death of their leader there–and I wondered with the people starving and living in one of the poorest and most isolated nations in the world, are they really that brainwashed to believe in the absolute greatness (almost like a deity) of their leader or was this whole display staged?

In 2010, the son, was given the rank of a 4-Star General–yet supposedly he doesn’t have any military experience.

This week, in the son’s first week in power, he was given the title “Outstanding Leader”–even before having the chance to lead.

Today, I read in the Wall Street Journal (23 December 2011) how the “Propaganda and Agitation” department there is working to “quickly bolster [the] new leader’s legitimacy.” According to the article, their responsibility is “for filing North Koreans’ minds with awe, devotion, and unswerving respect for the dictatorial dynasty.”

While propaganda and force can create yet another generation whose will is bent to serve its leader, my hope and prayer is that we have a possibility for a new way of thinking and leadership in North Korea, and in many other countries around the world today.

Wielding power can be an opportunity to show benevolence, encourage freedom, and win people over through the power of ideas rather than by physical or mental coercion.

(All opinions my own)

(Source Photo: here)

>Never Lose Faith; Never Give Up

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http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/apps/cvp/3.0/swf/cnn_416x234_embed.swf?context=embed&videoId=us/2011/04/21/holocaust.survivor.bar.mitzvah.WRAL

I really liked this story on CNN (source WRAL) on Holocaust survivor, Morris Glass, who is having his bar-mitzvah at 83–Mazel tov!

Mr. Glass was denied his rite of passage as a teenager to become a bar-mitzvah, because his family, like so many at the time, where being murdered by the Nazi’s in the Holocaust.

As he is one of the dwindling few Holocaust survivors left to tell his story–I value and appreciate these lessons that Mr. Glass shares in the interview:

– Be grateful for your loved ones.

– Never forget that terrible things happened to people (slavery, murder…) and could happen again, if not prevented.

– Everything you do, you should do right, even the little things.

– You are free to serve G-d, not free from responsibility.

– You are the future.

– Never lose faith; never give up.

To me, these are lessons in life and in leadership that are universal whether we are at bar-mizvah age (13) or at 83 and whether you are you celebrating Passover, Easter, or whatever.

Happy holidays.