The past is not past, it is today. The today that we live, will soon be tomorrow.
By Jerry Klinger
FALLSBURG, NEW YORK — Two interpretive markers honoring children killed in the Holocaust were installed on donated boulders. Each marker is sited in front of its own huge flower bed. A third marker is being sited at Monticello, New York’s Government Center.
By mid-October, six thousand Daffodil Bulbs will be planted in the Fallsburg beds. Three thousand more Daffodil bulbs will be planted at the Government Center. Next spring, about mid-April, the Daffodils will bloom, nine thousand beautiful flowers, bright yellow in color, six-sided in shape.
The masses of flowers will warm eyes that have been grayed by winter. Each flower, standing tall, will say, look at me. See how beautiful I am. Each flower will say, “Remember me.”
Remember me because each flower is in memory of a child; a child whose name is unknown. Each name is known by God. Over 1.5 million Jewish children were murdered in the Holocaust for the “crime” of being Jews. The number is incomprehensible. One flower, one at a time, is knowable.
Every day of every year, somewhere in the world, an incomprehensible number of children are victims of adult hatred, ignorance, bigotry, and violence.
The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, 5786 according to the Hebrew calendar, begins on Monday evening, Sept. 22. The evening opens a period of contemplation, repentance, prayer, good deeds, and charity – culminating with the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, on Oct. 2.
We seek God to forgive the sins we committed against Him. We will pray, hoping God will grant us life, health, peace, and forgiveness in the coming year. We express repentance for the sins we have committed against Him and against His creations.
God can forgive the Sins we have committed against Him. Atonement to God does not forgive the sins we have committed against our neighbors.
In Jewish tradition, if a person we have injured has passed, we are obligated to go to their gravesite and ask for forgiveness.
But what if there is no gravesite?
The 1.5 million Jewish children murdered during the Holocaust have no gravesites. Their murderers have almost all passed. We, today, have not injured any child represented by the Daffodils.
Why does each flower say, “Remember me?”
Each flower says Remember me because today, somewhere in the world, innocent children are still the victims of adult hatred, ignorance, and bigotry. Each Daffodil reminds us that our obligation is not an empty prayer selfishly seeking God’s forgiveness one day a year.
Whether we are believers or not does not matter. Our obligation to our children, to our neighbors, to our common futures, is to make the world a little bit better.
Our obligation of memory is to help the innocents of today, even if only one flower at a time.
The Daffodil Gardens are a project of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation and the World Wide Daffodil Project.
*
Jerry Klinger is the founding president of the Jewish-American Society of Historic Preservation