Students Memorialize Holocaust Losses
After last night’s impromptu fireworks displays, flag waving, chanting, and general excitement about Osama bin Laden’s capture, the news of his death and burial may be foremost on students’ minds. However, there is another event today that it is important we all acknowledge: Holocaust Remembrance Day.
While bin Laden’s capture is indeed a cause for celebration, we should not let it eclipse or at all diminish our commemoration of the millions of innocent people who lost their lives to the Nazis in perhaps the most convincing display of human evil in history. Those victims deserve to be remembered much more than does bin Laden, and it is exceedingly important that we recognize that.
Fortunately, several Cornell students, by constructing a memorial on the Arts Quad, made sure their peers would not forget the tragedies of the Holocaust. Cornell Hilel, the LGBT Resource Center, Haven, the LGBT Student Union, Cornell Student Disability Services, and the Cornell Union for Disability Awareness joined together to sponsor the memorial, which consists of numerous colored flags planted in the ground. Each flag represents 4,000 people killed in the Holocaust, with yellow flags representing Jews, blue representing Poles, political prisoners, and POW’s, green representing Roma, white representing the handicapped, red representing Jehovah’s Witnesses, pink representing homosexuals, and orange representing Catholic clergy.
Although it may be painful to exchange last night’s jubilation and celebratory atmosphere for solemn feelings of remembrance, it is critical that each of us take at least a few moments today to recognize the ultimate sacrifice Holocaust victims were forced to make.
