farmdoc's blog post number 13

I can hardly grasp the concept of six million people. Over 25% of Australia’s population. Sixty MCGs full. It’s a huge number of people. To be killed. To be murdered in cold blood, actually, for no other reason than they were Jewish. And to be remembered. But remembered they were – every single one – yesterday, which was the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day; in Hebrew Yom Ha'shoah. Yesterday was a day not only to remember and honour the slaughtered millions, but also a day of rededication to the prevention of all future genocide. It is no coincidence that the Holocaust deniers – you and I know who they are, the President of Iran is number one on the list – are the same lunatic racist megalomaniacs who rant on about obliterating Israel from the map. Israel! That tiny nation born a couple of years after the Holocaust, is the new element in the equation, and she is under no illusion that when push comes to shove, as increasingly it looks like doing, her sons and daughters will be responsible for their own destiny. Whereas the yellow stars that the Nazis forced the Jews to wear signified powerlessness, the blue Star of David is a symbol of freedom, democracy, pride and power – which is perhaps the most meaningful way of all to remember and honour the six million.