Photo By Petty Officer 2nd Class Nathaniel Moger | Joint Task Force Guantanamo deputy commander Army Brig. Gen. Gregory Zanetti tells the...... read more read more
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By Nathaniel Moger
Joint Task Force Guantanamo Public Affairs
GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba - Residents of U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay gathered in the base chapel, May 2, to speak about and reflect on the Holocaust. A tear-inducing event for some and solemn event for all, speeches and personal accounts of how the Holocaust has affected the past 70 years did not bring closure, but rather a deeper understanding of how the lessons of the past can inform the future.
The event began with the parading of colors by members of the W.T. Sampson Sea Cadets color guard and moved into an invocation by Chap. (Navy Lt.) David Mowbray.
"The fact that there are neo-Nazis and radical types that say that the Holocaust never happened is reason enough to have this event," Mowbray said afterward. "How can you say 'I don't believe 6 million people vanished at the hands of the Nazis?' They did."
Next, a candle lighting ceremony commemorated the children, parents and grandparents of those who perished. Then Jeff Einhorn, Naval Station Jewish lay leader, or non-pastoral staff religious leader, recounted the events leading up to "Kristallnacht" or the "Night of Broken Glass." Kristallnacht was a pogrom in November of 1938 that brought Nazi Germany's anti-Semitism to new heights and is considered the beginning of the Holocaust.
Chap. (Army Capt.) Scott Brill followed with a reading of Elie Wiesel's "Never Shall I Forget." Army Brig. Gen Gregory Zanetti then took the podium to tell the story of Army Lt. John Withers, who, as a black company commander in an all-black unit, provided refuge for Dachau concentration camp survivors at great risk to himself and his company.
The crowd never got to hear it.
Instead, the general spoke about what he saw during a trip he took with his family to Jerusalem last year.
"Rather than tell the story they gave me, I decided to tell the story that meant something to me," Zanetti said afterwards. "The story was about a 7-year-old girl named Dina Baitler who stood holding her parents' hands as they were all lined up along the edge of a pit and then machine-gunned down by Nazis. It stuck with me. I don't know why. There are so many heart wrenching stories; maybe it was because she was so little."
As Zanetti continued the story, he pondered on how a frightened girl could stay so still as to not attract the attention of her would-be executioners.
"I think the spirits of her father and mother kissed her on the forehead, put a finger to her lips and said 'Dina, be quiet.'"
As the result of such an atrocity, "good people lost their lives – Dina lived, but was certainly haunted and scarred, and the machine gunner lost his eternal soul," said Zanetti. "Everyone lost."
Following the general, base chaplain Navy Cmdr. Sal Aguilera spoke from his perspective as a Catholic priest, urging the Gitmo family to remember and reflect.
"As Pope John Paul II said, 'We must never forget those who died in the Holocaust so that we would not remember in anger, but in sadness and with the prayers of a better world,'" said Aguilera.
Base commanding officer Navy Capt. Mark Leary took the podium to tell the tale of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg's efforts to save Hungarian Jews.
Using his status as a diplomat, Wallenberg and his supporters created sovereign Swedish safe havens in Budapest and offered Jews passports as Swedish citizens awaiting repatriation. Through "courage and bombast," Wallenberg is credited with saving 15,000 lives in the waning days of the war.
Mowbray spoke of the gypsy holocaust, illuminating the point that violence and bigotry can reach across many demographics, and was followed by Chap. (Army Capt.) Y.J. Kim who read four memories of the concentration camps.
The event ended with a closing by Kathy Einhorn and a Benediction by Brill. During the closing, Einhorn recognized parallels between the atrocities of World War II and contemporary conflicts.
"We study history so hopefully we don't repeat the past," said Einhorn, while noting the current atrocities being performed in the Darfur region of Sudan. Einhorn then led the room in a closing reading:
May I never endure the experience of being a non-person.
May I never regard another as a non-person.
May my human dignity always be preserved.
May all of us maintain our honor as human beings.
| Date Taken: | 05.09.2008 |
| Date Posted: | 05.15.2008 08:40 |
| Story ID: | 19427 |
| Location: | GUANTANAMO BAY, CU |
| Web Views: | 187 |
| Downloads: | 139 |
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