ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. — The APG community commemorated victims of the Holocaust Thursday, April 8, in a virtual event hosted by the
Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense.
Jason Roos, the Joint Program Executive Officer for CBRN Defense, shared anecdotes from a trip he made to the site that housed the Dachau concentration camp in Germany and how it impacted him.
Roos said he was grateful for the experience because the number of living Holocaust survivors decreases as time goes on, and therefore fewer firsthand accounts of that historical period are being heard.
“We face the risk of forgetting how the world allowed the Holocaust to happen, and what we need to do to prevent power from going unchecked, and to prevent the hatred from infecting our hearts and minds,” he said. “It’s more important than ever that we remember to continue to share the survivor stories, and perhaps most importantly, continue to remember and to learn from, and God willing, never again, allow the history of the Holocaust repeat itself.”
The Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust ceremony’s guest speaker was Rabbi John Franken from Temple Adas Shalom in Havre de Grace, Maryland. He shared some of his family history and how it related to the Holocaust, as well as how he has spent much of his life studying the Holocaust and trying to understand how and why the events of the Holocaust — and the destruction of, at the time, one-third of the world’s Jewish population — unfolded.
He said the Holocaust serves as a reminder that while humans are capable of kindness and generosity, humans are also capable of cruelty and depression.
“We commemorate these days because the genocide of European Jewry is a universal human catastrophe,” he said. “Because it reminds us of the incredible depths to which we human beings are capable of descending.”
Franken also shared words of wisdom to the Soldiers and civilians of the Army, who he said are in an “unusually important position.”
“You are charged with protecting and defending our country at home and abroad. Few jobs matter more than preserving our freedom, our independence, our democracy,” he said. “At the same time, you owe your country the duty to defend its values and its honor to uphold the value — the universal value — of justice for all.
“Because the ends never justify the means, you Soldiers and civilians of the United States Army must never surrender your humanity,” Franken continued. “In a place devoid of humanity, strive to be human.”
A presidential proclamation designating April 4-11 as a week of observance of the days of remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust was read, calling upon the people of the United States to observe this week and pause to remember the victims and survivors of the Holocaust.
The ceremony concluded with the lighting of six candles in remembrance of the more than six million victims of the Holocaust, for those who helped them and for those who continue to live under oppression.
The Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust is an annual 8-day period designated by the U.S. Congress as the nation’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust. The Joint Resolution, which became part of Public Law 95-371 on September 18, 1978, called on Americans to “recognize that all acts of bigotry are rooted in the cruelty of spirit and the callousness that led the Nazis to commit atrocities against millions of people, and (Americans should) dedicate themselves to the principle of human equality.” It also called on Americans to “recognize that tyranny creates the political atmosphere in which bigotry flourishes, and be vigilant to detect, and ready to resist, the tyrannical exercise of power.”
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