Groups urge the UW to “Never Forget”

On Thursday, Lior Lipman, of Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, and 20 of his fraternity brothers marched around campus in a single-file line, wearing black T-shirts and signs that hung from their necks reading “Never Forget.” Without saying a word, they passed out fliers about the Holocaust and why the fraternity was walking to remember.

Lipman said it’s especially important for him to commemorate the Holocaust because all four of his grandparents are Holocaust survivors. When they were children, his grandparents, from Poland and Romania, were separated from their parents and placed in camps. They managed to escape from the death camps and fled to Israel.

“They talked to me about it, but that’s all I know,” Lipman said. “They’d rather not talk about it because it’s such a sad aspect of their lives. And I feel like if we don’t make sure that people know this stuff happened, then if they had died, their lives would have been for nothing. And we don’t want that to happen.”

Thursday was Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day to remember the horrors of the Holocaust.

It’s been more than 60 years since 6 million Jews and millions others were killed in the Holocaust, but groups from the UW made a special effort last week to remind the UW community of what happened.

“The motto for the Holocaust is ‘Never Forget’ or ‘Never Again,” said Erin Sayers, a member of Hillel UW, the center for Jewish life on campus. “We want to make sure [everyone] continues to remember. It’s just hard because the Holocaust was so long ago. It’s really easy to feel distanced from it, but it’s a part of … history and something we can’t forget.”

The objective of Holocaust Remembrance Day is both to recall the events of the Holocaust and take action in preventing similar genocides.

“Hopefully, people read the fliers that we handed out and remember how tragic it was, and why it’s important that we prevent it from happening in the world again,” Lipman said. “We should never let something like that happen again.”

In Red Square Friday, members of Hillel UW and STAND UW, or Students Taking Action Now: Darfur, lit hundreds of candles and read the names of victims killed in the Holocaust, as well as in other major genocides, like those in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia, Armenia and Darfur.

“We collaborated with STAND to show people that even though the Holocaust was something awful that happened 60 years ago, there are still holocausts and genocides going on today,” Sayers said. “We said ‘Never Again’, but it’s still happening now.”

Lighting candles and hearing the names of those who died was their way of making the Holocaust more real for the UW community, Sayers said.

“I feel like our generation is the last one that will have a chance to meet Holocaust survivors before their passing,” she said. “I think it’s going to be harder for future generations that won’t have a chance to meet them and really understand what happened. It is sad that my kids won’t ever have the chance to meet a Holocaust survivor, when I’ve had the chance to meet a few. When they show you their tattooed numbers on their arm and tell you their stories, it just makes it very real.”