On Monday, North Saanich middle school opens its Holocaust and Human Rights Museum at the school. This is the third year students have created educational and heartfelt displays, which they open to public viewing, to remind us all of the horrors of the Holocaust and other human rights violations.
More than 70 years since that disturbing period in the world’s history, people look back at the period and hope to understand how it all came to be. How could the world have stood by while millions of Jews and other non-Aryans perished under absolutely appalling conditions? How could the Nazis have believed such a massive purge of human life was a justifiable course of action?
With the help of informative displays such as the one at North Saanich middle school, we are reminded of what took place. Many of us tell ourselves we’d never let a brutal genocide like the Holocaust ever happen again.
Yet if we open our eyes, we see that similar genocides indeed still plague the planet. The mid-1990s slayings in Rwanda come to top of mind. But since the Second World War, there have also been race-obliterating dictators such as Pol Pot in Cambodia, the Bosnia-Herzegovina conflict and the daily killings between the Israeli and Arab people in the Middle East. Many also consider the conflict in Pakistan to be a genocide, as well as the murders in the Darfur region of the Sudan.
Next week, please visit the museum created by the students and teachers at North Saanich middle school. It is open Feb. 13, 15, 16 and Feb. 20 to 23. Tours must be booked by visiting northsaanich.sd63.bc.ca, or call the school at 250-656-1129. When you walk through the displays, remember that although the Holocaust is behind us, genocide is not.
Intolerance exists in our society still – even in our own community. In early January, a Jewish cemetery in Saanich was vandalized with anti-Semitic markings.
The more we are educated by programs such as the middle school’s museum and the more we talk about tolerance of all cultures and beliefs, maybe then we can say “never again.”