FRUITVILLE, Fla. — Seventy-five years after the liberation of Auschwitz, the world is pausing to reflect International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
One local Jewish group says it’s more important than ever to remember the atrocities committed and honor the lives of the six million people killed.
"If there was a moment of silence for every one killed in the Holocaust, we wouldn’t talk for 11 and a half years," Howard Tevlowitz said.
Howard Tevlowitz is the CEO of the Jewish Federation in Sarasota County. He says reminding people of six million murders and countless families torn apart 75 years ago is so important.
"With holocaust survivors dying, we are the memory. We are the memory keepers of the holocaust," he said.
That’s why, Tevlowitz says, education is critical.
"There’s so much ignorance, even in our own country. Something like 40 percent of Americans don’t know there was a holocaust. It’s pretty scary," he said.
Tevlowitz says people struggle to understand how it could happen.
"It’s very hard to explain the actions of people who were like us. Most of the leaders in the Nazi party were educated. They were doctors, they were lawyers. Why do people behave like that? Unbridled hate," Tevlowitz said.
He is concerned about that hate continuing in the years after the Holocaust.
"They’re repeating history over and over and over. So it’s incumbent on us to remind people, don’t forget," he said.
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