NEVER FORGET? HOW CAN WE WHEN WE KEEP REPEATING THE HOLOCAUST?

The other day was Holocaust Remembrance Day, recalling the time more than 60 years ago when an estimated 6 million European Jews were murdered by the Nazis in extermination camps. Joining the Jews as victims of this mass slaughter were almost 2 million Poles, 200,000 Roma and Sinti, also called Gypsies, a quarter of a million people with disabilities, between 10 and 20 thousand homosexuals and 2,000 Jehovah's Witnesses. There is no exact body count, and untold numbers of souls died horrible and anonymous deaths, but enough records were kept to reach these accepted death toll figures. As time passes and survivors and eyewitnesses die, slimy Holocaust Deniers crawl from beneath whatever rock where they were spawned to try to rewrite history.

Which is why Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower, upon the discovery of the concentration camps, ordered his troops to take as many films and photographs that they possible could, because he correctly predicted that "the day will come when some son of a bitch will say this never happened." Smart man, that Dwight D. Anti-Semites have been beating that drum for decades now, trying to duplicate the Big Lie theory put forth by the Nazis: "Say some thing loud enough and often enough and it becomes the truth." Well, no. No it does not, Herr Jerkenhoffer, and doesn't convince any reasonable person today. The Human Chihuahua that is president of Iran doesn't qualify as a reasonable or realistic person, or even a person who is in control of the nation he nominally leads. There's even bigger dunces running the show in Iran as the powers behind his tiny throne.

For anyone in doubt, the pictures are there, the films exist, the meticulous records the Germans themselves kept have been preserved in all their cold efficiency. Many of the camps still stand, with nobody willing to build and live where the stench of death and methodical cruelty poisoned the earth itself. Eisenhower's vivid visual records and the corroborated testimony of many thousands of remaining eye witnesses still haven't shamed the Holocaust Deniers into abandoning their agenda of hatred, but they are basically harmless blowhards who everybody with half a brain knows are so full of shit they don't even smell it anymore. More harmful are the Holocaust Emulators, the "ethnic cleansers" of the Balkan States in the 1990's (around 100,000), the slaughterers of Rwanda in 1994 (800,000) and the mass murderers (to the tune of 1.7 million) in Cambodia in the 1970's.

While none of these very recent incidents of genocide have produced the staggering numbers of victims of the Nazi Holocaust, it wasn't for lack of trying. So far none of them have been able to match Hitler or his main rivals in genocide, good old Chairman Mao and Jolting Joe Stalin, good for tens of millions apiece "purged" (murdered). There are many more groups of vicious haters out there who would like nothing more that to murder every last man, woman and child of some target group or another in their beds, but lack either the balls, the brains or the ambition. Others who would practice what they preach in a heartbeat are thankfully short of the the weapons and the opportunity. Unfortunately, there are some who can and will carry out genocide again, and for all we know, someday break Hitler's, Stalin's and Mao's records. There are many hate clubs seeking nuclear weapons, and no shortage of callous scumbags who will help them get their hands on some for a tidy profit. Genocide may yet see its most productive day.

This stuff has been going on since Biblical times, when some bigoted joker with an eye on some other tribe's territory thought it would be a great idea to pretend it was God's direct orders when the so-called Holy Scriptures commanded entire races of people "to be slain down to the last man, woman and child!" To their semi-credit, the Israelites of the Bible tales stopped short of complete annihilation, thus allegedly annoying the crap out of God for leaving a few victims alive. Can a human being ever truly convince themselves that mass murder is God's will? You would think that the actual act of slaying a child would cure that notion pretty quick. Or at least hope that's the case. There is only vengeance and hatred and personal gain involved, in Biblical times and today. Forget the holocaust? How can we? It's not over yet. Like the song says: "How can I miss you when you won't go away?"