This Tuesday, the Jewish community will mark Yom Hashoah -- Holocaust Remembrance Day. It is a somber day on which we remember the millions murdered during that dark period in our people's history and pay tribute to those who survived.
It is the day on which we repeat the refrain: Never Again. Never again will we the Jewish people or other innocents be subject to the unspeakable horrors and brutalities of another Adolf Hitler and his Nazis.
In observances in Jewish communities throughout the world, those who lived through that period -- whether survivors or witnesses -- will relate their experiences.
Yet, we are keenly aware that each day leaves us with fewer and fewer firsthand witnesses, fewer and fewer opportunities for the informal education with which many of us grew up.
As such, Holocaust education continues to be more of an academic, textbook exercise -- and we must continue to insist that our schools properly teach about that horrific time period.
Yet, people also learn of the Shoah through cultural references, through movies, theater, novels and television. This Sunday evening, for example, CBS will present The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler, about a Catholic woman who was part of the Polish underground and was credited with smuggling several thousand children out of the Warsaw Ghetto. Writer/director John Kent Harrison told the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle that the film "deals with suffering that most Americans know nothing about."
It is precisely because so many people know little about the Holocaust that such movies are important for transmitting information about a time that to many is already ancient history.
It also is why such artistic endeavors can be dangerous. That is the worry of some who are charging the Olney Theatre with presenting a play that they believe is inaccurate and presents stereotypical anti-Semitic images of Jews.
King of the Jews playwright Leslie Epstein stresses that his play is based upon his novel, which, in turn, draws on actual people and events. He doesn't purport that his characters really existed, but that the basics of his story are factual and heavily researched.
It is that conflation of fact and fiction that rightfully concerns his critics. The danger is that a reader, viewer or audience member may believe the fictitious parts to be fact, and leave with a wrong -- even dangerous -- impression.
That danger, however, is inherent in any artistic endeavor based on history. Still, we'd rather see writers like Epstein continue to bring us powerful artistic works -- accompanied by reasoned and authoritative commentary and discussion -- so that no one will ever forget.
