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Should We Remember the Past?

“CAN the Jews forget the Holocaust?” This question was raised by Virgil Elizondo, president of the Mexican American Cultural Center in San Antonio, Texas. It reminds us that the atrocities seen in this century can leave an indelible imprint on the collective memory. The genocide of the Armenians (1915-23) and the mass killings of Cambodians (1975-79) must also be included among the atrocities of the 20th century. Even so, the list is by no means complete.

In an attempt to foster reconciliation between victims and their tormentors, religious and political leaders have on occasion invited people to forget atrocities suffered. This happened, for example, in Athens, Greece, in 403 B.C.E. The city had just witnessed the end of the oppressive dictatorship of the Thirty Tyrants, an oligarchy that had eliminated, even physically, almost all its adversaries. The new governors sought to reestablish civil harmony by decreeing an amnesty (from a Greek word meaning “oblivion” or “forgetfulness”) for supporters of the previous tyranny.

Forgetting by Decree?

It can be relatively easy to try to cancel by decree the memory of atrocities perpetrated on the innocent. Rulers can decide to do this for political expediency, as happened in ancient Greece and in various European countries at the end of World War II. In Italy, for example, in 1946 a decree declared an amnesty to over 200,000 citizens “guilty of participating, in more or less relevant ways, in the misdeeds of the Fascist regime,” said the newspaper La Repubblica.

However, the decisions of governments or public institutions are one thing. The sentiments of the individual members of a community are quite another. It is not possible by decree to compel individual citizens—perhaps the defenseless victims of brutal conflicts, massacres, or other barbarities—to forget past sufferings.

More than a hundred million people have died in the wars of this century alone, many after unspeakable suffering. If we were to add all those who have been killed in peacetime massacres, the atrocities would be innumerable. Many people go to great lengths to ensure that none of these are forgotten.

Those Who Would Like to Cancel the Memory

Those who urge victims of atrocities or their descendants to forgive and forget often assert that remembering the past is only a source of division, especially if decades have passed. They say that forgetting unites, whereas remembering cannot turn back the pages of history, however tragic the sufferings were.

But in trying to make people forget, some have gone to the point of denying the reality of the most horrendous crimes committed against humanity. Supported by self-styled revisionist historians, some claim, for example, that there never was a Holocaust.a They have even organized tours to former extermination camps, such as Auschwitz or Treblinka, and have told the visitors that gas chambers never existed at those places—and this in the face of numerous eyewitnesses and mountains of evidence and documentation.

How is it that such false revisionist ideas meet with success in certain circles? Because some choose to forget their own responsibility and that of their own people. Why? Because of nationalism, their own ideology, or anti-Semitic or other such sentiments. Once atrocities are forgotten, revisionists reason, responsibility vanishes. But many people vigorously resist these irresponsible revisionists, called by one French historian “assassins of the memory.”

They Do Not Forget

It is obviously very difficult for survivors to forget loved ones lost in war or in atrocities. However, most of those who want to remember massacres and genocides do so because they hope that the lessons drawn from their own suffering and the suffering of their loved ones will be useful in avoiding any repetition of such brutality.

The German government has thus decided to commemorate the anniversary of the discovery of horrors perpetrated by the Nazis in the Auschwitz concentration camp. The intent, according to the president of Germany, is that “remembering will serve as a warning to future generations.”

Similarly, on the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, Pope John Paul II asserted: “As the years go by, the memories of the War must not grow dim; rather, they ought to become a stern lesson for our generation and for generations yet to come.” Nevertheless, it has to be said that the Catholic Church is not always consistent in remembering the atrocities and the victims of those years.

In order that new generations may also draw lessons and warnings from the genocides of this and other centuries, a number of museums—such as the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Beit Hashoah Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles—have been established. For the same reason, emotionally moving documentaries and other films on this subject have been produced. All of this is an attempt to prevent humanity from losing its memory of people suffering at the hands of other people.

Why Remember?

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” wrote the Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana. Sadly, it seems that over the course of millenniums, mankind quickly forgets its own past, thus condemning itself to commit the same bitter errors over and over.

The long and atrocious sequence of mass killings by man highlights that human domination of other humans has been a total failure. Why has this been so? Because humans have constantly repeated the same basic error—they have rejected God and his laws. (Genesis 3:1-6; Ecclesiastes 8:9) And today, just as prophesied in the Bible, a “twisted generation” is doing the same and is reaping the consequences.—Philippians 2:15; Psalm 92:7; 2 Timothy 3:1-5, 13.

Since we have involved the Creator, Jehovah, in our discussion, what is his point of view? What does he forget, and what does he remember? Can the painful legacy of the atrocities perpetrated by man be overcome? Will “the badness of wicked ones come to an end”?—Psalm 7:9.

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[Blurb/Pictures on page 7]

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”—George Santayana

Crematorium and oven at Auschwitz concentration camp

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Oświęcim Museum