This week we mark Yom HaShoah, honoring the lives lost during the Holocaust. Fewer and fewer survivors are among us. It is our job, therefore, to hold onto their stories and to tell these stories. We cannot forget what happens when hate goes unchecked, when dissent is silenced, when diversity is diminished, when difference is deemed scary. The messages of that darkest period of time must remain with us and must be applied to the world we live in today, a world that is fractured along multiple lines. Indeed, “never again” must be more than words, more than a slogan. We must apply these powerful words to how we live and the type of world we strive to build for our children and grandchildren to inhabit.

At this time of year, I think very much of my grandparents, four survivors, and try to hold onto their legacies of courage and fortitude with all my might. They lived with faith and with gratitude. I miss them dearly.

I have also been thinking of another group persecuted during the Shoah. Those who were gay or lesbian, bisexual or transgender, were treated heinously by the Nazis, many of them sent to extermination camps. They were given pink triangles to wear, making clear to any passersby what their sexual identity was. Queer Jews wore the pink triangle over their yellow star. This pink triangle has since become a symbol of defiance and pride. I have been thinking of them as the rights of those who are transgender are increasingly threatened by current politics and policies.

The Holocaust is our story, but it is not only our story. We must remember all who died at the hands of grievous ignorance. We must remember that they came for us, but not only us. We must remember that one of the many lessons of the Holocaust is to be an ally of – and up-stander for – all those oppressed because of their beliefs or identity. Especially today, let’s speak out against hate and intolerance. Let’s choose justice. Let’s choose fairness. Let’s choose kindness. Let’s choose love.

In closing, I’d like to share a poem I wrote for this year’s Yom HaShoah:

We Are the Pink Triangle
We are neither nor,
We are loved and unloved,
Seen and unseen.
We are one.
We are one and wounded.
Laughed at for being.
We are alone.
Too many of us to count.
Too many to consider.
We are the lost.
We are in closets.
We are the castaways,
Jew and non-Jew.
Him and her.
Us and them.
Was and Will be. And never was.
Beside you on the train
An outstretched hand by yours
A weary heart of still-fluttering hope
We are a heart that beats and beats.
Our pink triangle is and is not,
On me but not of me
I am for and with
I am without
I am the pink triangle.