Holocaust Memorial Day

 From "If this is a Nan", Primo Levi  (page 68, as he wakes from a recurring dream):

 "It must be later than 11pm,  because the movement to and from the bucket next to the night-guard is already intense.  It is an obscene torment  and an indelible shame; every two or three hours we have to get up to discharge ourselves of the great dose of water which during the day we are forced to absorb in the form of soup in order to satisfy our hunger: that same water which in the evening swells our ankles and the hollows of our eyes, conferring on our physiognomies a likeness of deformation, and whose elimination  imposes an enervating toil on our kidneys.

It is not merely a question of a procession to a bucket; it is the rule that the last user of the bucket goes and empties it in the latrines; it is also the rule that at night one must not leave the hut except  in night uniform (shirt and pants), giving one's name to the guard. . . 

. . .[T]he risk which hangs over us. . . when we are driven by necessity to the bucket every night, is quite serious.. .  [T]he night-guard  unexpectedly jumps from his corner and seizes us, scribbles down our number, hands us a pair of wooden shoes and the bucket and drives us out into the middle of the snow , shivering and sleepy.  It is our task to struggle to the latrine with the bucket  which knocks against our bare calves, disgustingly warm; it is full beyond all reasonable limit, and inevitably with the shaking  some of the content overflows on our feet, so that however repugnant this duty may be it is always preferable that we, and not our neighbour, be ordered to do it." 

 Having reminded myself of this, in future when I make my minimum of three nightly excursions from my bedroom to my bathroom, instead of regretting the inconvenience I shall try to be happy  that I do so in privacy and warmth and don't have to carry a bucket of other people's issue

 All societies have their disgruntled, frightened and insecure members, who find it easy to identify the "other" as the source of their grievances.   Through history Jewish people have been easy targets of this scapegoating and the holocaust is, to date, the most horrifying illustration of the depravity that can result when an entire society normalises the  treatment of one of its components as less than human.

There are alarming signs in out present-day society of the initial germs which lead to this depravity.  In the United States  ICE roams the streets arresting so called "undocumented immigrants" identified by their government as "the other" in a manner which calls to mind the activities of fascist mobs in 1930 Germany.  In In our own country we have, as yet, a long way to go, but our government has  placed restrictions on our democratic right to protest, arrested peaceful protesters and deliberately tried to create a "hostile environment" to immigrants whom it believes, often mistakenly, may be here illegally.

 Our prime-minister fears we may become "an island of strangers" (though he now regrets the phrase) the leader of the party at present tipped to win the next general election worries when he hears only foreign languages on a tube train, one of his recent recruits worries that he doesn't see a white face in a suburb of a major city. 

 Just the tip of the iceberg, perhaps, but today is a reminder of where these small beginnings can lead.