learning from history to NOT repeat it

[Jude Iam]

I survived the Warsaw ghetto. Here are the lessons I’d like to pass on

Sobering words for us all. Jude

"I would, first, urge future generations of Europeans to remember my generation as we really were, not as they may wish us to have been. We had all the same vices and weaknesses as today’s young people do: most of us were neither heroes nor monsters.
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Second, just as there is no such thing as a “heroic generation”, there is no such thing as a “heroic nation” – or indeed an inherently malign or evil nation either.
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Third, do not underestimate the destructive power of lies.
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Finally, do not ever imagine that your world cannot collapse, as ours did.
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If disaster comes, you will find that all the myths you once cherished are of no use to you. You will see what it is like to live in a society where morality has collapsed, causing all your assumptions and prejudices to crumble before your eyes. And after it’s all over, you will watch as, slowly but surely, these harshest of lessons are forgotten as the witnesses pass on and new myths take their place."

• Stanisław Aronson took part in the Polish resistance under Nazi occupation. He lives in Israel
This article was originally published on September 5, 2018, by The Guardian, and is republished here with permission.