RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany -- RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany- Holocaust survivors, Bob and Ann Kirk prepare to share their daunting journey with Kaiserslautern Military Community members in honor of Holocaust Remembrance at 1:00 p.m. on April 24 at the Officers’ Club on Ramstein Air Base, Germany.
The 86th Airlift Wing is scheduled to host the event in addition to a wreath laying ceremony at 4 p.m. at the flag poles of building 2201.
While the U.S. observes the lives lost during Holocaust Remembrance Day annually, in the European Union, it goes a step further.
In Germany, it is a punishable crime to deny the Holocaust happened.
“We have to remember that the Holocaust didn’t just happen,” said Ann Miracle 86th Force Support Squadron Ramstein Tickets and Tours guide and Holocaust educator. “It was because people, individuals, governments, agencies decided to legitimize racism, prejudice and put it into law. And that’s wrong. We want to be able to teach children and other people how to not stay silent and not be indifferent when they see injustices happen.”
The atrocities of the Holocaust have taken place approximately 72 years ago. It’s had a detrimental effect for not simply Europe as a whole, but the faces Ramstein Airmen see each passing day in their work centers or at their local market.
Individuals, Miracle said, is what makes Holocaust Remembrance so important for everyone.
“We often hear the ‘Holocaust’ and we hear six million Jews were killed or we hear that 11 million people were murdered," she said.
“But instead of thinking of it as numbers, when you meet someone, it puts this in the realm of this is an individual, this happened to an individual. This happened to one family, one person, one brother, one sister, a mother, a father…whether they were Jews, Jehovah Witnesses, homosexuals, gypsies or disabled, in some way these people were some of the victims of the Holocaust.”
The event committee plans to transform the numbers into faces by handing out informative cards of survivors living in neighboring villages within the KMC. The cards will list the names of the families, how they were affected and where they were born, lived and died.
Since 2004, Miracle has been dedicated to teaching educators about how to teach Holocaust history and for a lot of people, she said, its life changing when they meet Holocaust survivors.
“I encourage students, civilians, teachers and Airmen, everyone to come and hear the Kirk’s first-hand account, and be a witness to the triumph for them,” Miracle said. “The Kirks have triumphed. They have three grandchildren and a great-grandchild. And that’s a victory for what was a very horrible regime.”
In order to prevent condoning prejudice in a government, stripping individuals of their basic human rights and the systematic extermination of millions, the U.S. commemorates Holocaust Remembrance Day from April 24-April 30 each year.