ANALYSIS – Today has been rightly designated as Holocaust Memorial Day – it remembers the dark period in Europe’s history when nationalism took a journey beyond the abyss, as symbolised by the liberation of the death camp that was Auschwitz seventy years ago today. Those who are ardent followers of this poisonous idea need to explain the chillingly precise manner in which the most advanced nation on earth set about ‘cleansing’ itself of those it did not regard of worthy to be in their presence. The Holocaust remembers the suffering of the Jewish people who for some reason were so viciously dealt with. Of course, they were not the only ones – there were Gypsies, Poles, homosexuals, anyone deemed in some way to be affecting the health of the body nation. And for this reason the Holocaust must be an indictment of the very basis of nationalism. No set of human beings are superior to anyone no matter what discoveries, technological or otherwise they make, or advances they feel they have brought to ‘civilisation’. For we all belong to one human family we are all the children of God – that was the lesson we should all take from the events of the Holocaust, as well as Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Rwanda, Srebrenica, and all the other crimes against humanity that continue to this day.

Journey beyond the Abyss: Aushwitz ..