The Holocaust

The very picture our minds forms when we come across the word ‘holocaust’ is a terrible dream in itself.

Back in 1939, the Second World War began and humanity witnessed the worst. Usually when there is a tension between two countries, the allies walk into the tension without even measuring the outcomes. What we find common between a household fight and a war is that both start off with really petty issues. The problem begins when one of the two parties wouldn’t settle for anything.

It was enough to make the angels weep. Genocide, execution taking place in the open streets, pregnant women being shot, masses of army men being deployed and killed, children being sent to gas chambers for a painless death and many other methods of mass killing. To even think of these can send shivers down the spine of any human on the face of earth.

After almost 80 years, we find ourselves looping around the same question, “Why the innocent? What did they do to deserve that?” The answers to these will remain a black hole till the ends of time.

In my dreams, often I picture myself being born in that era. ‘What would it be like?’ and as I go on to think about it, I wake up with a jerk and sweat trickling down my body.

I can’t find myself defending any of it. Some people might as well that it was necessary. May be it was, I don’t really know but where can we find the ‘good’ in those?

Imagine your hair being shaved off of your head, and your clothes being ripped off, and your neck being tattooed with fuming ink, the to-dos before you died. You are now officially selected. I probably might have killed myself before being exposed to such treatment and so would have the others.

Living your life back in those days seemed like a far away dream. Survival took over livelihood. To even have yourself saved from the genocide was and is considered an extravagant luck.

I find myself dreaming about Auschwitz, like I am walking around the fields there, taking a careful look at every grave and placing flowers and shedding a puddle of tears on each. I wish to have exchanged places with someone, so that they could live.

I can’t find myself making peace with the death of millions. It wrenches my gut and knocks me out of my senses. If there was anything that is good about The Holocaust, it probably is that it ended.

We’re here and living, because someone else gave their lives away. It’s a lot to be grateful for.