27 January
This is a moment to be serious, not because it’s the eve of CNY eve, but this day half a century ago marks the liberation of all Holocausts from Auschwitz. For those who have never heard of those 2 words before, please Google it before proceeding.
Before the war, Jews made up the biggest community in Europe; after the war, the numbers perished so quickly you barely have enough time to rub your eyes and cry for their fate. Due to the fact that Jews are ‘too much in abundance’ in Europe, while starting the war Hitler silently determined to exterminate European Jews as well. The only way of doing this is by sending them off to Auschwitz and later exterminating them by suffocation of poisonous gases in large quantities. Unfortunately, most of the Jews are not privilleged enough to enter the extermination chambers - many die of hunger, infection, the plague and refusal of medical treatment.
Do we not feel the throbbing pain when someone we loved is taken away from us? Do we not suffocate, not struggle, not feel every cell dying away when we inhale anything other than what we should inhale?
In the appaling conditions of Auschwitz, a kindered spirit rose above all others. Oskar Schindler as a Nazi member initially spotted Jews as a profitable alternative of labour. However, later he realised that his Jews workers are also fathers of children, wives of husbands, and sons and daughters of parents. Throughout the years, he spent all his wealth in bribing German officers in Poland for the lives of his workers. There are fewer than 4000 Jews left alive in Poland today. There are more than 6000 descendants of the Schindler Jews.
So, on the eve of CNY eve, please spare 5 seconds for more than 6 million Jews who died in Auschwitz. 6 million is 1/4 of Malaysia’s current population, and 5 seconds isn’t really very much.
