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January 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Holocaust_Remembrance_Day
There was an article in The Toronto Star about the need to teach teenagers and millennials about the Holocaust. There have been attempts to improve history education over the years. But today's young people still are terribly misinformed.
This article reminded me about an incident that happened to M and me in the mid-80s.
We were invited to the new house of a Gentile couple, friends for many years. It was about a year after their wedding. I'm sure they don't read my blog, so I feel safe in writing about them.
We had been invited to their wedding. M had been the groom's good friend for 20 years. In fact, M was told he would be the groom's best man--until he was usurped by the groom's brother. Okay, he's family, we thought. We can understand how you have to please family members. M was asked to be an usher instead.
At the receiving line, we felt that the brother was very cool to us.
There had been other hints of this family's antisemitism here and there over the years, mostly from the man's father. Most were addressed to M, but I got to hear some of it, too, at the wedding rehearsal.
After the wedding, we hardly heard from this couple and wondered about it. Until this dinner party at their new house.
Before dinner, the wife asked M about where his family came from.
"My parents escaped from France during World War II when my mother was pregnant with me in 1944. My mother's family was stuck in occupied Romania. My father's entire family all died in Poland during World War II. One of his brothers died while he was in jail."
"In jail? Why? What did he do?"
We looked at each other, shocked at her ignorance. She was totally clueless.
M had to explain to her what it was like to be Jewish in Europe at that time.
This couple was the same age as M and had studied World War II history from the same high school textbooks that he did. Both of them were well educated professionals, with masters degrees.
After that experience, we dropped them as friends.
