“It will happen again, It is happening again” 

                                                          - Eve 

It has lately come to my attention that we lack an interest in the past. We study it, and claim it ours but we fail to take it as a lesson, to feel the duty we owe to it, to the people and the event itself. 

Last Tuesday on the 26th of January a webcast organised by the Holocaust educational trust took place where holocaust survivor Eve Kugler gave her testimony. Her story is different to what one would deem the most atrocious and devastating experience of this deeply tarred period of history, yet the level of discrimination she had the strength to bear were inhumane. However, this was not the exciting series of events students were expecting to hear, which seemed to make them value it less. As soon as Eve was done speaking some of my own classmates began a heated discussion, on their upcoming economics test. None of them stared blankly at their notes, deep in thought, reflecting upon her last few words “This will happen again, It is happening again”.  

That day I became a witness of the hamartia of the human race and I employ this word conscious of its significance for our lack to comprehend the pain of others and learn to identify the inflictors will destroy us. History should serve as a moral lesson, a teaching not of the past but of the nature of humanity, of our gifts but most importantly, of our faults. Which should not only be seen and heard but absorbed and corrected. Our society has ceased to improve and it cannot fall back into our own previous habits. The holocaust should be the marked as the beginning of a new mentality, movement were the key ideology is tolerance. 

After the webcast Eve told us to think about what we would do to make people aware of the importance of reflecting upon history. This is my attempt at this. I cannot inform you of her experience I cannot even describe her words myself for it is not my story to tell. But I can write my thoughts and have faith that someone will understand this: 

“History is meant to be a lesson, a lesson analysed, reflected upon and applied.”

                                                                                                              - Valerie Marton