How to tell about the holocaust

There are so many ways to teach about the holocaust:

You can show films that document the horrors, the starved skeleton like bodies

of the prisoners , the striped pyjamas, the piles of shoes , the mass graves

you can tell that but there are other ways, depending on how you describe it,

the conclusions  will be made:

Should we be angry at the president of Iran who says it never happened ?

should we be angry at the world that does not recognize the Jews' right to a homeland of their own ?

should we be angry at the United Nations for not allowing Jews to defend themselves ?

This is how i had learned about the holocaust :

I had learned about the holocaust from my maternal grandmother

a small Hungarian speaking woman with a lot of charm and humor

great cat like blue eyes with a touch of green

a woman who had religiously purchased flowers for herself every Friday

and had spent sunny days at the beach splashing about the water

as a child even at seventy.

The holocaust was never a once a year event for her but a "movie" that

kept on appearing again and again and reminding her that she had to keep

telling about it and making sure it is not forgotten;

why she lost her home, why she had lost her brothers and sisters , her mother,

her country, her friends,

but she never said that

she never said she was a victim, she only spoke of what had happened

and how it worked , like a horror movie, the systematic destruction of the

Jewish population of Europe.

She did not tell me there were others murdered too because they were different

but once i had learned that i began to understand that it was really not about

us but it was really about the kind of people who could first of all stand by

and do nothing

and about people who allow bad things to happen to other people and not

do or say anything.

I think it is an art to tell stories that had happened to you

i think it is very good to say it as it is and not to say what you think

but to describe as best possible, what had happened and let the one

who is listening to make their own conclusions as i made mine.

Therefore it is best not to tell the children and the next generation to come

how horrible the people behaved and how they treated other people in inhuman ways

but it is important to tell it as it is

and to tell the children to be proud of who they are and not to let anyone

put them down or make them feel less than who they are ..

I have not done that yet, but i am planning to

real soon

to strengthen rather than to just say how difficult times had been

to remind them that there was the fighting spirit that still lives on

the light burning that still burns

remind them of that

that is how to tell ..