'Yom' is hebrew for day, 'Ha' means the and 'shoah' means calamity or destruction, though in modern terms 'shoa' is really just used to refer to the holocaust in hebrew. So, literally, 'Yom Ha'shoah' is the day Day of Destruction. In essence, Yom Hashoah is Holocaust remembrance day. The word 'holocaust' comes from the greek term for animal sacrifices burned whole.
Like Billy, a lot of Holocaust survivors find themselves stuck in the past. I knew a man for whom Billy's time-traveling became a harsh reality when he came down with Alzheimer's disease late in life. For most people, this is an awful disease that eats away at your memories and sanity, often with painful consequences for children who perhaps cannot be remembered. For the man I knew, he would wake up still believing himself to be in a concentration camp, and would start screaming and crying when he saw his son, believing him to be an Nazi officer coming to take him to his death. It was a sad relief for his family when he passed away, the only way he could know peace.
Below is a poem (translated from German) by an unknown author, found scrawled on a cellar wall in blood in Cologne, Germany, where jews were hidden while trying to escape Nazi prosecution and persecution.
I believe in the Sun
Even when it is not shiningI believe in love
Even when I am alone
Even when I am alone
I believe in God
Even when He is silent.
- Ellana
that poem at the end very nearly made me cry. ;_;
ReplyDeleteme too. I can't imagine how the person who actually first discovered it must have felt <:(
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