60 years ago, on January 27, 1945, Soviet troops liberated the Auschwitz - Birkenau concentration camp. This camp
will forever remembered in humanity's collective memory as the most notorious of the Nazi death camps.

Psychologists say that when ones life experience is bad, one should move on, look into the future and build new
life. "Leave the past behind you", they tell you. "Forget!". It sure doesn't apply in the case of those who survived the
Nazi horrors.

And how can they forget? How can a human being go through hell, and then move on with their lives as if nothing
happened? So many of the survivors carry a number on their arms, a lasting mark of the horror they went through.
And... they also carry one though in their minds: "We have to tell what happened to us. We have to yell it out loud,
so the world - and generations to come - will know the truth, learn from it, and won't let something like that
happen ever again!"

I'd come to hear stories of the Holocaust first handed from my next-door neighbor. She was a survivor of the Nazi's
Auschwitz death camp. She had a number on her arm. Every year, on Holocaust memorial day, my mom and I knew
she was falling to pieces under the weight of her memories, and we used to knock on her door and ask her how
she was holding up. We knew that she'll tell us the same story... We knew it'll burden our souls tremendously...
and we knew that we will go to her, and let her tell it again... because she needed to tell - and by that relive again
- the horror.

She was in her teens when WW2 started, and during it, she'd found herself in Auschwitz. The Nazi concentration
camp at Auschwitz was liberated by soldiers of the Soviet Union in 1945. There were 1,200 people abandoned to
the Russians at Auschwitz. Before the Soviet army got there, the Nazis had ordered 67,000 of the prisoners to
march west to other camps. The last of the prisoners to be evacuated were marched out of the camp on the
evening of January 18, 1945. This was a "death march" with those who couldn't keep up being shot and left
alongside the road. Those who were too young, too old or too sick were left in the camp.

My neighbor walked this Death March... and came out of it alive. She later came to Israel, got married, had 2 kids
and grandchildren... but there wasn't one day in her life - according to her - that she didn't relive her experience.
She lost her parents and some of her siblings, while other siblings survived as well. Her story, like all those others
carried around, had to be told... Had to be heard... Had to be remembered.

Why? as George Santayana said: The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again. We
have to tell and remember, because those who were there and are still alive are few, and they shall too pass. We
need to tell and remember, to make sure something like that won't happen ever again! We must ensure the safety
of next generations as much as we can.

We need to remember, that even today, there are still people out there who choose to deny this horror ever
happened, and they sure have lots of excuses. Then... there are those who'd love to see all Jews gone from the
face of the heart. Sadly, many people didn't learn a thing.

A simple search on Google for "Holocaust" produced countless site url's. I've added only few of them here, if you'd
like to read and learn:

• The Holocaust chronicle
• A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust
• Holocaust Survivors
• HopeSite - The Holocaust Education Center
• The Holocaust History Project
• A Cybrary of the Holocaust, Remember.org
• Holocaust Poetry and Art

And also, check here for a list of bloggers who participated in January 27, 2005 BlogBurst regarding Remembering
the Wannsee Conference and the Liberation of Auschwitz.

All of us, who were lucky enough to be born after WW2, must remember... tell... and never forget!!!