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Tuvia Book
Author, educator, Tour-Guide, artist

Thoughts on the unimaginable: International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2021

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It is the day the Red Army liberated Auschwitz in 1945. Despite having led many groups to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, and visited countless former camps and walked through cities and towns which were once filled with Jewish life, and despite the fact that I have heard many first-person accounts and read so much about the Shoah, the more I read the less I understand. I get angry. I get sad. I get frustrated. I get incredulous. It is an emotional roller coaster. How could others murder so many people just because of their religion? How is mankind capable of such cruelty? Whilst there are rays of light, such as the Righteous Gentiles who risked everything, and the Jews who fought back either physically or morally, the whole period for me in one of overwhelming darkness.

I remember one of the times I led a group on the March of the Living, we assembled in front of the blown-up gas chambers at Birkenau after having marched in silence from Auschwitz I to Auschwitz II along the rail line and through the gates.  Standing next the IDF guard of honour was the former Chief Rabbi of Israel Rabbi Lau; himself a survivor having being rescued by the American troops as a little boy. He started the address with the following remarks,

Look around, there are 8,000 youth from all over the world. That is half the amount of people who were murdered daily in Auschwitz at its peak killing capacity between June and November of 1944 when Hungary’s Jews (including my grandmother’s entire family) were being murdered.

I don’t really recall much of the rest of his speech as the opening stunned us. The scale of the site and the scale of the murder and the scale of the evil just overwhelmed me. It’s so important to go at least once to Poland to see what we lost and to see the evidence first hand, especially whilst we can still hear it in the first person. I asked a survivor last year if he could show my son his number on his arm just so he will be able to tell to his children that he saw that humans were branded like cattle.

Tuvia talking with a Muslim student and her Catholic teacher from an Austrian high school at Birkenau. Photo (c) T. Book, 2021

Rabbi Sacks z”l was correct when he lamented on the crisis of Jewish identity in the Diaspora.  He said that,

It is the result of a century of bad, if understandable, decisions. One above all. We neglected Jewish education. The result is that we know little about Judaism, and our children know less.  They know about the Holocaust – about how Jews died, not how they live. They know about Israel, but that is somewhere else, not here.

Finally I realise just how important it is to have our own Jewish state and a strong IDF. I get very emotional every time I return from Poland home to Israel. I’ve seen people weep with gratitude, myself included.

Dr. Tuvia Book is the author of “For the Sake of Zion, A Curriculum of Israel Education” (Koren, 2017).   His forthcoming book on the Second Temple Period,  will be published by Koren this year.  He also is a  Ministry of Tourism licensed Tour Guide, Jewish educator and a Judaica artist.  www.tuviabook.com 

About the Author
Tuvia Book has a doctorate in education and is the author and illustrator of the internationally acclaimed Israel education curriculum; "For the Sake of Zion; A Curriculum of Israel Studies" (Fifth edition, Koren), "Jewish Journeys, The Second Temple Period to the Bar Kokhba Revolt, 536 BCE-136 CE," (Koren), "Moral Dilemmas of the Modern Israeli Soldier" (Rama) and the soon to be published “Jewish Journeys, The First Temple Period, 1000 -586 BCE” (Koren). Dr. Book was born in London and raised in both the UK and South Africa. After making Aliya at the age of 17 and studying in Yeshiva he volunteered for the IDF, where he served in an elite combat unit. Upon his discharge he completed his undergraduate degree in Jewish history and literature, as well as a certification in graphic design. He then served as the Information Officer and deputy head of security at the Israeli Consulate of Philadelphia, while earning a graduate degree in Jewish Studies. Upon his return to Israel, Dr. Book graduated from a course of study with the Israeli Ministry of Tourism and is a licensed tour guide. Tuvia has been working in the field of Jewish education, both formal and informal, for many years. He has guided and taught Jewish students and educators from around the English-speaking world for some of Israel’s premier educational institutions and programs. Tuvia has lectured throughout North America, Australia, Europe, and South Africa. In addition, his artwork has been commissioned on every continent (except Antarctica). Tuvia served as a Shaliach (emissary) for the Jewish Agency for Israel as the Director of Israel and Zionist Education at the Board of Jewish Education of Greater New York (Jewish Education Project). He was a lecturer/educational guide at the Alexander Muss Institute for Israel Education (AMIIE) in Israel. Tuvia has lectured at both Bar Ilan University and Hebrew University. He is a Teaching Fellow at the Tikvah Fund. He is a research associate at the Hudson Institute. His latest book, "Jewish Journeys, The First Temple Period, From King David to King Zedekiah, 1000 - 586 BCE," (Koren) is part of a series on Jewish history.
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