WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM OUR ENEMIES?

I would like to briefly refer to the Holocaust in Sephardic communities, a topic that is not often discussed. In Holland, France, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Italy, the Sephardic Jews suffered the same fate as the Ashkenazi Jews of Europe. Probably the most shocking case was that of the community of Thessaloniki in Greece, where nearly 54,000 Jews, 95% of its population, were exterminated in Auschwitz (see here). My first reflection is that we must learn a great lesson from our enemies: that we are ONE people and we must stay united. That there are no, and should not be, differences between Sephardim, Ashkenazim, more religious or less religious, etc. We must do the impossible to feel that we are members of the same family.

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THE JEWS OF MOROCCO AND ALGERIA

Let’s briefly look at the impact of the Shoah on the Jewish communities in North Africa: Morocco, which had a population of 200,000 Jews in 1940. Algeria, 120,000 Jews. Tunisia had 80,000 Jews, and Libya, had 30,000 Jews. The first three states were under the French protectorate, while Libya was under the Italian protectorate. France was occupied by the Nazis in 1940, which is known as “Vichy France.” The Germans ruled France, its colonies, and its protectorates. And this included: Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. In Morocco and Algeria, the infamous “Statut de Juifs” was established, which allowed the German authorities to confiscate the property of Jews, severely restrict their activities, and prohibit their access to education, etc. They also established about 30 labor camps to build the trans-Sahara road, and for that, the Germans recruited about 4,000 Jews from Morocco and about 1,000 Jews from Algeria. It should be noted that there was a big difference between these labor camps and, for example, Auschwitz or Bergen-Belsen. In the North African “labor camps,” only adult and able-bodied men arrived at first. Dozens of them died due to unsanitary working conditions, scorching heat, disease. But the vast majority survived. The camps in Europe, on the other hand, were “extermination camps.” Children, the elderly, women, and men who could not work were immediately exterminated in gas chambers. And for the men and women fit for work, they were made to work but ultimately to be killed. This horrible strategy, not so well known, has a “name” in the German language. The expression is: Vernichtung durch Arbeit, “killing Jews through forced labor.” Returning to North Africa on November 8, 1942, and B”H before the Nazis could carry out the process of deportation and extermination of the Jews, Allied forces led by General Montgomery arrived on the coasts of Morocco and Algeria and were able to defeat the Nazis-led by General Rommel in a military operation called “Operation Torch.” (see map above).

THE OLDEST JEWISH COMMUNITY OUTSIDE OF ISRAEL

Tunisia is a separate story. Tunisia was the only country in North Africa directly occupied by the Nazis. To begin, the Jewish population of this country, the smallest in the region, constituted 15% of the total population. Jews lived in the capital (of the same name) and on the famous island of Djerba. According to tradition, a group of Cohanim (priests) who served in the Temple of King Solomon escaped to Djerba when the Great Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 BCE. They brought some stones from the Bet HaMiqdash which they used to build their synagogue there. To this day, the majority of Jews in Djerba – more than 60% – are Cohanim, something that has recently been confirmed in DNA tests that detect the Cohanim gene. Djerba is one of the few surviving Jewish communities in the Arab world. One day after the “Torch” operation began on November 9, 1942, the Germans occupied Tunisia. Rommel’s idea was to regroup in that country and repel the Allied forces from Morocco and Algeria and the British forces from Egypt. Within days of arriving, and despite being occupied with fighting the Allied forces, the Germans ordered the leaders of the Jewish community to provide them with all the data about the community. Thousands of Jews were taken to labor camps to build military roads (the vast majority survived). More than 200 Jews from that country were transported directly to Europe, where they were exterminated in concentration camps. B”H in May 1943, the Allies defeated and expelled the Germans from Tunisia, and the loss of Jewish lives was not higher.

I refer to the history of the Libyan Jews during the Holocaust in a separate article (see here)

WHO WAS NOT INCLUDED IN THE FINAL SOLUTION?

A final reflection on something horrifying. On January 20, 1942, the infamous Wannsee Conference took place, which is a small town near Berlin. At that conference (see here), the Nazi leaders gathered with the purpose of evaluating and strategizing “the final solution” to the Jewish problem. Among other things, they mentioned the number of Jews that had to be eliminated in France. This list indicated 700,000 Jews. But in France, there were only 350,000 Jews! Historians say that the only way to understand this difference in numbers is that the Nazis planned to exterminate all Jews from the countries under French protection: that is, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia…

I have always defined myself as “a Holocaust survivor.” The simple reason is that, as with North Africa, the intention of the Nazis’ final solution did not end in Europe. God forbid, if the Nazis had triumphed in Europe, then the Jews of North Africa, the Middle East, and perhaps even the Americas would also have faced the executors of the final solution.

We all are Shoah Survivors

IZKOR

On Monday night, the eve of the 27th of Nisan, we will begin the commemoration of Yom haShoah, the day on which we remember the brutal extermination of 6 million Jews at the hands of the Nazi murderers and their collaborators.

My parents and grandparents were not born in Europe. I come from a typical Sephardic family. On my mother’s side, my ancestors come from Syria, and on my father’s side, from Morocco. None of my close relatives were sent to a concentration camp, nor died in a gas chamber. My parents, my sisters, and I were all born in Argentina. We did not directly experience the Shoah, nor do we have survivors in our families.

I learned about the Shoah at the school I attended in my hometown of Buenos Aires, the Talpiot school on Azcuénaga Street at 700. Every year they made us watch some horrible black-and-white documentaries. So, my classmates and I learned about death trains, corpses, crematoria, and gas chambers. I will never forget that documentary that showed a group of school-age children, accompanied by a teacher, innocently entering a German army truck, from which they never emerged alive, since to expedite their murder, the Nazis directed the carbon monoxide gases inward. I cried, and a lot… for the horror that our brothers suffered at the hands of the most inhuman humans that history has known, yemach shemam.

But what I remember most, and what made my experience of the Shoah something “personal,” happened the year our principal, Mr. Eliezer Shlomovitz, z”l, invited a Holocaust survivor to speak with us (it was probably the year 1977). It is worth noting that at that time, it was not common for Shoah survivors to speak in schools.

He was an elderly man. It was difficult for him to speak in Spanish, and you could tell he didn’t have a memorized speech. Although I vividly remember the experience of hearing him speak, I am ashamed to admit that I remember all the details of his personal story. Not his name or if he thought it necessary to mention it. After telling us about his personal holocaust, how he lost his parents, his little brothers, and practically all his loved ones, and how he managed to escape from Auschwitz, this elderly man told us something like this:

“You have not personally lived through the Shoah, thank God. I think I fear that perhaps for you, the Shoah may one day become just another chapter in modern Jewish history. A history that perhaps can be refuted, questioned, or denied by our enemies. And that is why I want you to understand that the effort of our enemies to deny history is the first step in trying to repeat it. And you can never allow that to happen. It is not enough to ‘learn’ about the Holocaust. You have to be witnesses to the Shoah. All of you. Why? Because history can be denied and documents can be questioned. The only ones who can protect the memory of the Shoah are the witnesses of the Shoah. Today, you have heard my story. And you have also seen me. And you have seen my eyes… Now you carry a new and tremendous responsibility on your young shoulders. Today, you have become eyewitnesses to the Shoah. How did this happen? I will explain it to you. My eyes saw the Shoah. But they didn’t see it in black and white. My eyes saw the dark green of the Nazi uniforms, the metallic gray of their rifles, and the red of the blood of our loved ones. My eyes saw death in all its horrible colors. My eyes saw the horror that my words cannot describe. And now I want you to look into my eyes. So that from today on, you can tell others, and someday tell your children: ‘I have not seen the Shoah. But my eyes have seen the eyes that saw the Shoah. And now, my children, look into my eyes and become witnesses too.’

When he finished speaking, he rolled up his sleeve and invited us to look at his prisoner number. It was the first time we had seen a number tattooed on human skin. I approached him a little closer and forced myself to look more closely into his eyes. They were small, gray, sad, tired, and dull. There was something empty and absent in that gaze. It lacked “life.” And that was when I realized that in the tired eyes of that old man, I had witnessed a reflection, or a dark shadow, of the horror of the Shoah. And since then, I became a witness. And the Shoah became part of my personal experience.

Let us not forget. Nor allow it to be forgotten.

THE ONLY THING NECESSARY FOR THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL IS FOR POWERFUL MEN TO DO NOTHING 

WHEN JEWS WERE OBSESSED TO BE GERMANS…

Many times I wrote about the problem of conceiving Judaism as a “religion”, instead of understanding it as the legacy that unites the Jewish people: the Jewish People’s Laws, history, and land. 

This may seem like a simple and superfluous game of words: are we a nation or a religious group? But when we understand the origin of this distinction; and even more so, the terrible consequences of taking away the National Aspect from Judaism, we can better appreciate the magnitude of this nuance.

The division between “the Jewish people” and “the Jewish religion” began in the early 19th century in Western Europe, when stimulated by the idea of ​​emancipation, the first reformer Jews deliberately renounced any values and ideas that could connect them to the land of Israel, a fundamental element of our Tora. The reform religious leaders explicitly declared that they renounced the Messiah who would take them back to Israel and rebuild the Bet haMikdash. They also renounced praying for their return to Jerusalem and mourning its destruction. All these elements, which constitute the “national” aspect of Judaism were deliberately eliminated from the prayer books and from the new Reform ritual. The message stood very clear: These European Jews saw and showed themselves as “patriotic” French or Germans, an integral part of their homeland’s heroic history and destiny. And as an act of loyalty to their “mother country,” they openly and explicitly renounced everything that could be perceived as an expression of “double loyalty”. The early reformers proudly called themselves French or Germans professing “the Mosaic religion” (they tried to use the word “Jew” or “Jewish religion” as little as possible). They sought to compare themselves with other religious groups, such as Catholics or Protestants who had no other alternative allegiance, national or geographic.

I’M NOT MY BROTHER’S KEEPER

The terrible consequences of this seemingly innocent paradigm shift were not long in coming. For example: In 1840 there was a blood libel in Damascus, Syria. The Jewish community of that city was falsely accused of killing a Christian child to use his blood in the Matzot of Pesah (sic!). Several community leaders were imprisoned, tortured and forced to “confess” to this ridicule accusation. The Jewish leaders of Europe (like Sir Moises Montefiore of London, Adolphe Crémieux of France, Eliyahu Picciotto of Austria and many others) moved heaven and earth to help free these poor Jews, and managed to get them out of prison after an inexhaustible struggle. There was an exception to these efforts: Abraham Geiger, one of the most prominent leaders of the Jewish community in Germany. Geiger, considered by many historians as the “founder of the reform movement”, refused to help because he claimed to have nothing in common with those “Arabs” as he called them. This has nothing to do with Sephardi/Ashkenazi distinctions. Rather, Geiger saw himself as belonging exclusively to the German people, and for him, consequently, there was no national (or emotional) link with any other Jew outside of Germany. The fact that these “Syrians” practiced the same creed as him, was totally circumstantial and unimportant. Geiger, loyal to the new ideology that he was first and foremost German, owed them nothing. Surely, Geiger was not the first Jew who refused to help other Jews. But as far as I know, he was the first Jew to use this new argument; renouncing the idea of a “Jewish people” to disassociate himself from “Israel”- the land and the nation And in this way, justifying his lack of action, his apathy and his indifference towards other Jews. All this was done, with extremely naive imagination, in pursuit of being perceived by the gentiles as an exemplary and patriotic German citizen, and being accepted as equal in the illuminated German society (the rest of the story need not be told…).

ALL THAT YOU NEED FOR THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL 

But what does this have to do with the Shoah and the New York Times?

Unfortunately, very much.  As painful as it is to talk about this matter, it teaches us a very important lesson, extremely relevant to our days. Between 1939 and 1945 there were about 5 million Jews living in the US. Many of them were very influential in the government and in American culture. However, there was very little that the American Jews actually did to influence president Roosevelt and try to save their brothers and sisters in Europe when they needed it most. European Jews were desperately asking the Americans to bomb the railroad tracks that led millions of Jews to death. Or to bomb the concentration camps. And as we know, none of this was done … not until after six million Jewish lives were taken.

But why? One of the reasons to explain this lack of action and this deafening silence responding to the endless cries is that the vast majority of American Jews (and non-Jews) DID NOT KNOW what was happening: they had no idea of the magnitude of the massacre that was taking place in European soil … How did this happen? A book called “Buried by The Times” by Laurel Leff, explains this enigma. Leff concludes that the man responsible for this deliberate misinformation was one of the most influential men in the USA at that time: Arthur Hays Sulzberger, editor in chief and owner of the New York Times (his family still owns this newspaper), the most important newspaper in the world. In the 1940s the New York Times, especially, was not only the most important newspaper in the world but also the “leading” newspaper; in the sense that thousands of other newspapers and newscasts in the US and around the world got their information from the Times and followed its leadership (this, obviously, is changing in the modern news-media-world).

Let’s see some examples that illustrate the biased attitude of the New York Times in reporting the atrocities occurring in Europe.

YOUR BROTHER’S BLOOD CRIES OUT TO ME FROM THE ASHES

A New York Times article of July 2, 1942, reports the killing of 700,000 Jews, one-fifth of the entire Jewish population of Poland. The article does mention concentration camps and gas chambers. The article also says: “Children in orphanages, elderly in hospices, sick in hospitals, and women were killed in the streets. In many places, Jews were detained and deported to undisclosed destinations or massacred in nearby forests ” The article continues to list how many Jews had been killed in each province, and then says that “the massacre still continues in Lwow.” However, the American public was largely unaware of the magnitude of what was happening. And this is why. These news stories were deliberately buried in the middle of the newspaper. The article of July 2, 1942 appeared on page 6 under a small subtitle reserved for insignificant material.

Another article of June 27, 1942 that describes the same massacre as “probably the biggest mass slaughter in history”, was on page 5 and had no title! This horrific downpayment of the Shoah did not occur because the front page of the newspaper was full of momentous news. The day this horrific story appeared in the New York Times, the front page featured articles about tennis shoes and canned fruit.

How did this happen?

Because Arthur Sulzberger, who was Jewish felt no connection at all to the threatened mass of European Jews. On the contrary, he did everything he could to ignore them. To disconnect from them. Because he was an American, of mosaic relgion.   

Sulzberger wrote the following: “There is no common denominator between the poor and unfortunate Jew led [to death] in Poland and I. Certainly, in Poland, this Jew is part of a persecuted minority. … fortunately, I’m not in that category. “

WHEN WE DON’T SEE OURSELVES AS A UNITED NATION

According to Leslie Leff Sulzberger’s silence and minimization of the information on the Shoah and his lack of empathy towards European Jews were due to his reformist ideology. Sulzberger’s political grandfather, Isaac Wise, was the founder of the Jewish reform movement in the US, who continued promoting the idea that Jews are not a nation, but simply followers of a creed. Sulzberger was an assimilationist Jew. For him, Jews are not a people, in the same way, that Catholics or Protestants are not a people. In December 1942, in a note to the staff of the New York Times he wrote: “I have been trying to instruct the people of my newspaper on the subject of the word ‘Jews’; that they are not a race or a people.… “

Former New York Times journalist Ari Goldman, in his review of Leff’s book, writes:” There is no doubt that Sulzberger’s views on Judaism influenced what he did in his newspaper. “

Again and again, the views of Sulzberger are reflected in the editorials of the New York Times- in which the difficult situation of the Jews is not mentioned, rather it is deliberately ignored.

On the German refugee children, almost all of them Jews, the New York Times generalized: “[those children] are of any race and faith.”

On the Hitler regime, the New York Times wrote: “It is decency and justice that are being persecuted [by Hitler], not a race, nor a nationality, nor a faith.”

On the millions of Jewish refugees, the New York Times said: “They have nothing to do with a specific race or creed. It is not a Jewish or a Gentile problem. “

And notably, in an editorial on the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943, the New York Times did not mention Jews at all. 

Leff concludes: Sulzberger’s bias was shared by other Jewish staffers who decided to minimize, bury and downplay the news about the killings of Jews: “…the imperiled Jews of Europe had no advocate in the NYT’s newsroom.”

WATCH

How the NYT ignored the Holocaust

LISTEN TO THIS AMAZING AUDIO

Downplaying the Holocaust — Sulzberger & NY Times TED Talk by Anna Blech .mp3

THE CIRCLE CLOSES

The history of the Libyan Jewish community in the 20th century involves a lot of suffering. First under the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini, then under the Nazi regime, and at end of the Second World War, the Jews of Libya were also victims of attacks and programs by the local Arab population. Finally, in 1969 Libyan Jews suffered horrific discrimination imposed by General Muammar Gadaffi, which was exceptionally cruel to the few Jews who remained there.

On the other hand, the Libyan Jewish community had always a very important ally: the State of Israel, which even before it was born, was there to help. The brief history that I am about to tell you today represents a little of the spirit of these days in the Hebrew calendar: the transition from the Holocaust towards the creation of the Jewish State: Medinat Israel.

MUSSOLINI AND THE JEWS

There is evidence that Jews lived in Sirte, Libya, as early as the 13th century before the Common Era. This Jewish community was one of the oldest in the world. But we are focused now on the 20th century. From 1911 to 1951 when it gained its independence, Libya was an Italian protectorate. The early years of Mussolini were not so bad for the Jews of Italy and Libya. But their situation got worse in 1936 when Mussolini made a pact with Hitler. Anti-Jewish decrees were established in Italy and its protectorates. At the end of the 1930s there were more than 30,000 Jews in Libya, especially in the capital Tripoli, where Jews constituted 25% of the total population. They had 44 synagogues. Under Mussolini Jews were forced to open their businesses on Saturday, for the sake of “contributing to Italy’s economy”. Many objected, until the authorities, as an exemplary measure, executed two Jewish merchants. Italy’s infamous racial laws prohibited Jews from accessing high school or college education. Jews were also banned from working in government organizations, banks, or municipal offices. And all their official documents had to bear a stamp that said “Jew”.

In June 1940, Italy officially entered the war and sided with Germany. Thousands of Libyan Jews were sent to labor camps within Libya for construction work or to build military routes, just as had happened in Morocco and Algeria, and most survived. But Libyan Jews who had English citizenship were sent to death camps in Europe, such as Bergen-Belsen, where many died of starvation, typhus, or exhaustion.

A CONCENTRATION CAMP IN AN ISLAMIC COUNTRY

In February 1942 Mussolini ordered the establishment of a concentration camp in the city of Giado, 200 kilometers south of Tripoli, to take the Jews there. In June 1942, the Italians had already deported a total of 2,584 Jews to Giado. The conditions of life in the camp were impossible. The camp was crowded: dozens of families slept in a four-meter space and were separated only by bedding and blankets. The daily food rations consisted of a few grams of rice, oil, sugar, and coffee substitute. Men over the age of 18 were sent to forced labor every day. Water scarcity, malnutrition, overcrowding, and dirt intensified the spread of contagious diseases. And the Italian guards enjoyed humiliating the Jews. Of the nearly 2,600 Jews sent to Giado, 562 died of weakness and hunger, and especially of typhoid and typhus. The Giado concentration camp not only recruited workers but entire families. In this sense, this camp was the closest to a European concentration camp that could be found in North Africa. And it had the highest number of Jewish victims in Islamic countries during World War II.

THE BIG SURPRISE

In early 1943, British forces were defeating the Nazis and the fascists. The big surprise for Libya’s Jews was to encounter among the soldiers fighting to liberate Libya some “Israeli” soldiers, that is, young Jewish fighters coming from the Holy Land, then under British control, who had training in Jewish combat units, Lechi, Hagana, etc. After 1948 the fighters serving in those units formed the Israeli Army. The presence of these soldiers obviously created a great positive impact on the morale of the poor Jews of Tripoli and Benghazi. But the sufferings of the Libyan Jewish community did not end with the end of the Second World War.

In 1945, when the Jewish soldiers returned to Israel, there was a terrible pogrom carried out by the local Arabs in which close to 150 Jews were killed.

In 1948 some 3,000 Jews illegally escaped to Israel. This immigration started the redemption of the Libyan Jewish community towards a greater future!

In 1949, finally, England legalized immigration to Israel, and the remaining 30,000 Jews left. Only 700 Jews remained in Libya.

In 1967 during the Six-Day War 17 Jews were killed.

GADAFI BUILDS A CAMP

In 1969 when Muammar Gaddafi came to power, he decided to make life impossible for the few Jews who were still there. He did it the best Nazi-style. Jewish property was confiscated. The debts owed to the Jews were canceled. Jews were prohibited from leaving the country. And Gaddafi ordered the Jews to be taken to a detention camp where they were forced to stay for several months!

Yom HaShoah day of remembrance ended last night. However today I decided to write about what Libyan Jews suffered in the Holocaust and beyond because, despite all the pain and losses, the community had a happy ending. In the 1970s the Jews who remained in Libya were able to escape. Many settled in Rome, Milan, London, or New York. But the majority live nowadays in Medinat Israel.

Today, Baruch HaShem, there is not a single Jew left in Libya.

Today is Yom haShoah, the day we remember the murder of 6,000,000 Jews in the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators.
Many historians repeat over and over again that had the State of Israel existed before 1939, more Jews could have migrated to the land of Israel, and millions of Jewish lives could have been saved…
The story of a Jewish family in Thessaloniki, Greece, the family of Rabbi Habib, could serve as an example.

JEWISH GREECE

In 1900 the Jewish community of Thessaloniki was the most important Sephardic community in the world, with more than 90,000 Jews, more than half the total population of the city. The Jews excelled in all professions: lawyers, doctors, teachers and maritime trade specialists. The Jewish stevedores of the port of Thessaloniki were famous throughout the world. And during Shabbat, the port of Thessaloniki, one of the most important in Europe, remained closed, since most of the port workers and entrepreneurs were Jews.
There were 49 synagogues in Thessaloniki, and a 500-year-old cemetery with half a million graves. The community of Thessaloniki was always considered the Sephardic community “par excellence”. From the time of the expulsion from Spain in 1492, Salonica was the favorite destination of tens of thousands of Jewish refugees who escaped the Inquisition. The official language of the Jews of Salonika was Ladino, that is, the ancient Judeo-Spanish language.

RABBI HABIB and HIS FAMILY

Rabbi Hayim Habib, born in Salonika in 1882, was a descendant of one of the most prestigious families of Rabanim and Dayanim (rabbinical judges).Rabbi Habib had 4 children: 3 daughters and a son. At the age of 40, Rabbi Habib was offered to serve as the great Chief Rabbi of Thessaloniki. Between 1920 and 1940 the Zionist movement was very active in Thessaloniki. Rabbi Habib was an enthusiastic supporter of emigration to Israel and took care that modern Hebrew be taught in all the schools under his jurisdiction, in order to prepare the youth for Aliya. A daughter and the son of Rabbi Habib emigrated to the land of Israel before the war and settled Tel Aviv.
During that time thousands of Jews from Salonika also came to Israel. Some of these families today own important companies, such as the family of Mordechai Mano, the pioneer of maritime commercial transport companies in Israel, which owns Seagull Maritime, Mano Maritime, etc. Or the Recanati family, also from Thessaloniki, who established the famous Israel Discount Bank.

FROM THESSALONIKI to AUSCHWITZ

When World War II began, the Jewish population of Thessaloniki consisted of 56,000 souls. In April 1941 Germany invaded Greece, the Greek King George the II fled Athens, and the country was divided into three different zones: Athens and certain Greek islands were under the control of Italy; East Macedonia was under the control of Bulgaria; Thessaloniki fell under the control of the Nazis. The Germans destroyed synagogues, Jewish schools, libraries, and the Jewish cemetery. Soon, a ghetto was created for the Jews of Thessaloniki, and they were forced to move there wearing the yellow Star of David. This led to widespread looting of Jewish homes and businesses by collaborators among the local population. The Jews of Thessaloniki – virtually the entire community – were deported to the concentration camps, by March 1943.
95 percent of the Jews in Thessaloniki, 54,000 Jews, were murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau, or died during the terrible “Death March” from January to May 1945. In this march the surviving Jewish prisoners of Auschwitz had to walk out in the field in temperatures that reached -4 degrees F. They were taken to die there to “erase any evidence” that could incriminate the Nazis from the horrors of the concentration camps (nowadays the famous “March of the Living” are organized in memory of these marches).
Rabbi Hayim Habib, his wife and two of his daughters died in Auschwitz or on the death march, in 1945. However, a third of Rabbi Habib’s family –-as it happened to thousands of Thessaloniki’s Jews– survived because they migrated to Israel, where they now live BH with their numerous families descendants.

To better understand and appreciate the value and meaning of Medinat Israel, and to be infinitely grateful to HaShem for its miraculous existence today, we should remember these tragic numbers