COMMENTARY: We should remember and teach the Holocaust, not mock its horrors

Contributed by Kate Gaddis, UHCL alumna

COVID-19 is spreading rampant throughout the world. Here in the United States, we have access to vaccines. But there are some people who think that being unvaccinated is being oppressed. Some educators and even nurses are comparing being unvaccinated to the Holocaust, which is disgusting. How can one compare being unvaccinated to  being tormented and even dying during the Holocaust? 

The Holocaust was the murder of six million Jews during the years 1939-1945. During that period, Jews were forced to wear a yellow Star of David patch on their clothing. If they did not wear this, they were simply shot. Today, people who are unvaccinated are printing out Star of David patches that say “unvaccinated” and putting them on clothes. This is an insult to the six million Jews that perished.  

Jewish teens like Moshe Flinker and Otto Wolf did not see the end of the war, because they were Jewish. 

Moshe Flinker was born in The Hague, Holland, Oct,9, 1926. He went into hiding in Belgium in 1942. He began a diary in Nov of 1942 and wrote down his frustrations about God and his questions about life in the diary. In 1944, his comfortable life in hiding came to a sudden halt, when the family was betrayed. He was deported to Malines Transit camp, then to Auschwitz. Some people say he died there, but he did not. In Nov of 1944, Moshe and his father were deported to Echterdingen work camp. Then they were deported to Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in Germany where he died there of typhus at the age of 18. His mother died in Auschwitz and his father died a few days after him in Belsen. His siblings all survived the war and had his diary published in English in 1971.  

Otto Wolf was born June 5, 1927 in Mohelnice, Moravia, Czech Republic. His family got the notice for deportation in the summer of 1942. As his sister Felicitas put it they decided to decline. They went into hiding in the forests surrounding Trsice. They were aided by a gardener named Jaroslav Zdaril (also known as Slavek). He helped the Wolfs with supplies and food and shelter for almost two years. After the situation got so bad with Slavek, they were hidden in the attic of their former housemaid, Maria (called Marenka) Zboril. They were also aided by a dentist named Ludmila Tichá. After Mr. Zboril lost his patience with the family, the Ohera family in nearby Zakrov took them in.  

Otto began his diary in June of 1942 when they went into hiding. He wrote more than a thousand entries and four volumes of diaries describing what food they ate, who helped them and his activities while in hiding.  

On April 18, 1945, there was a raid on the town of Zakrov, by Russian troops fighting for the Germans called Vlasov Troops. They were looking for people called partisans, people who hid in the forest and attacked the Nazis at every opportunity. He was accidentally mistaken for a partisan and was taken away along with eighteen other young men. He was then handed over to the Gestapo after he was denounced as a Jew. He refused to give his name, his family’s names or who help hid them, even while being tortured relentlessly. On April 20, 1945, he was taken to a nearby forest with eighteen other men and shot to death. His sister Felicitas Wolf wrote in Otto’s diary after Otto disappeared. She learned of Otto’s death on the day of liberation on May 8, 1945, after they came out of hiding. She was the only sibling of the three Wolf siblings (Kurt, Otto and Felicitas) to survive. Felicitas donated Otto’s diaries to the United States Holocaust Memorial Musuem in 1995. Felicitas died in 2006. 

Otto and Moshe would have been so upset to learn that their deaths are being used in vain while people who are supposed to be getting the vaccine, such as nurses, doctors and educators, are using ways that are ignorant to them.  

Irene Fogel Weiss, a Holocaust survivor, is scared to death of what America has become. She said she is deeply disturbed, and she said that this country that she found freedom and shelter is now threatening her. She feels anxious and no longer secure. 

The Jews of America are deeply disturbed by these people who are mocking what their ancestors and family went through during the Holocaust. Rabbis all over the country are trying to wrap their heads around why in the name of all that is holy people would be so ignorant or uneducated while making these Star of David patches or why they would think they’re going to be placed in “unvaccinated camps” whilst having their heads shaven. Survivors are scared and the memories of six million, not to mention one million Jewish children and teens are being taken in vain.  

 We should be remembering and teaching about the Holocaust, not mocking the horrors of the Holocaust.