"A Sermon for Yom Hashoa: Holocaust Remembrance Day "

Author's Note to "The Yellow Star"

Legend: a traditional story sometimes popularly regarded as historical but unauthenticated; a myth.

-THE CONCISE OXFORD DICTIONARY, 8TH EDITION

The story of THE YELLOW STAR is a legend. It may be disappointing to the reader as it first was to this author to learn there is no proof that the story ever occurred. I learned of it as a scrap of a tale told to me by a stranger. Its imagery was so compelling, and its humanity so palpable, that I wanted to know more. Over the years, despite collecting various oral versions of the story, researching documents and works of fiction [most notably Lots Lowry's moving novel, NUMBER THE STARS), I found only unauthenticated references to King Christian's legendary defiance.

And I learned of many facts that in their own right were as powerful as the legend itself. I learned that

- The beloved king of Denmark did indeed ride unescorted and unprotected through the streets of Copenhagen.

- Stories about the king's support of Danish Jews began to circulate throughout Europe as early as 1943, including his threat to wear the yellow star in solidarity with the Jews.

- No Jews within Denmark were forced to wear the yellow star.

- Among the Nazi-occupied countries, only Denmark rescued the overwhelming majority of its Jews.

- Over 7,000 Danish Jews were smuggled to Sweden in fishing boats, 12 to 14 at a time, by a group of Danes called the "Helsingor Sewing Club."

- Of the almost 500 Jews deported to Theresienstadt, all but 51 survived due in large part to the Danish government's intercession on their behalf.

Yet the legend only grows stronger. Why? Perhaps because we need it. The allegory of the yellow star used by the Nazis to divide and shame became in this legend a symbol of unity and hope. It is a story that should be told.

What if it had happened? What if every Dane, from shoemaker to priest, had worn the yellow Star of David?

And what if we could follow that example today against violations of human rights? What if the good and strong people of the world stood shoulder to shoulder, crowding the streets and filling the squares, saying, "You cannot do this injustice to our sisters and brothers, or you must do it to us as well."

What if?

SERMON

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, a relatively new presence among the monuments on the National Mall in Washington, has not lost any time in making its mark as a "living memorial." It preserves the history of the Holocaust, but it also works "to prevent genocide in the future." The Museum led the way in galvanizing public attention on the crisis in Darfur, declaring - before the United States government or the United Nations did - that it was a Genocide Emergency.[i]

As I sat at my desk in California, educating myself about Sudan and the connection between the Nazi Holocaust and the genocide in Darfur, I turned again and again to the Holocaust Museum's web pages, and the generous resources I found there. I had a lot to learn. And while I read, I realized that the Museum was educating me in more than one way. It provided a reliable source of information, from simple overviews to academic studies. It also taught me to care about the people of Darfur, victims of horrific violence, yet so far away and so different from us, that it is just too easy not to think about them at all.

Compassion and the will to act come from learning to identify with others. It's a simple human ability, but it requires knowledge and familiarity, something to bridge the gap between here and there, and something to break through the barrier of indifference and denial. For those of us living comfortably on the Westside of Los Angeles, the conditions in Darfur are unimaginable. The political and ethnic strife is extremely complicated. That makes it difficult to know what to do about the suffering of the people there.

Here is what I learned from the Holocaust Memorial Museum: "Since early 2003, Sudanese government soldiers and their proxy ethnic militia, known as the Janjaweed, have fought rebel groups in the western region of Darfur. The government and Janjaweed strategy has been to carry out systematic assaults against civilians from the same ethnic groups as the rebels. . . . Rebel forces are responsible for some attacks against civilians, but overwhelmingly the Sudanese government and Janjaweed have perpetrated the violence."

The Holocaust Memorial Museum states that the Sudanese government's actions include: "inflaming ethnic conflict, impeding international humanitarian access, resulting in deadly conditions for displaced civilians, bombing civilian targets with aircraft, murdering and raping civilians."[ii] Recently the situation in Darfur has become even more chaotic; people are trapped and fighting with each other. Hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled to Chad, where the fighting has also crossed borders. It sounds terrible. And it looks terrible. Now there is a collaboration between the Museum and Google Earth to give viewers a close look at what is happening there. You can zoom in on your computer screen and see burned out villages, hear victims telling their stories, and come as close as possible to this disaster halfway around the world.[iii]

All of this information made a huge impression on me. But it took more reading to get a grasp of the human experience. Guided by the Museum's theme for the year, "children in crisis," I read some of the narratives of the victims of Sudan's civil war, known as the Lost Boys.

The Sudan civil war took place years before the crisis in Darfur. Some of the conditions were the same: the Sudanese government's use of ethnic Arab militia against rebels and civilians. And some of them were different: the persecuted tribes in the civil war were Christian, while all the Darfurians - whatever their ethnicity - are Muslim.

"What is the What," a novel by Dave Eggers, tells the story of one real Lost Boy, Valentino Achak Deng. He is a member of the Dinka people, who were assaulted by the militia twenty years ago, and fled on foot across southern Sudan. The civil war that left him orphaned and homeless has since been settled, but the political dynamics and oppression have persisted, mutating into the crisis in Darfur.

Valentino - as he is known in the United States, where he now lives - barely survived his ordeal. He writes, "As a helpless human I survived by trekking across many punishing landscapes while being bombed by Sudanese air forces, while dodging land mines, while being preyed upon by wild beasts and human killers. I fed on unknown fruits, vegetables, leaves, animal carcasses and sometimes went with nothing for days."

His story is so harrowing I was unable to read it before going to sleep at night. And though Valentino is now safe, and through his work with Dave Eggers able to tell his story, raise money, and rebuild his home village, his words still help us connect with all those who haven't yet been saved. Especially the children.

I read from "What is the What." Here Valentino Achak Deng has made it into a refugee camp in Ethiopia. In this episode, he has wandered away from his camp and meets a local woman.

"- Come here, you. A woman cooking in front of her home spoke to me . . . . I stopped and stepped toward her. - Do they feed you in that camp? she asked. She was an older woman, older than my own mother, almost like a grandmother, her back bent and her mouth a loose, toothless cavern. - Yes, I said. - Come inside, boy.

"I went inside her hut and smelled its smells of pumpkins, sesame, and beans. Dried fish hung from the walls. The woman busied herself cooking outside and I settled against the wall of the hut, resting my back against a bag of flour. When she returned she poured a dish of flour and water into a bowl. When I was finished with that, she took a bowl of corn foo-foo and into it poured a cup full of wine, a concoction I had never seen before. When I ate that, she smiled a sad toothless smile. Her name was Ajulo and she lived alone. . . .

"- There are too many of you here, she said, now deeply troubled; . . . .  Until your people leave, you can come here any time. Come alone and you can eat with me any day . . . .

"When she said that, . . . she touched my cheek as a mother would, and I crumpled. My bones fell away and I lay down on her floor. I was in front of her, heaving, my shoulders shaking and my fists trying to push the water back into my eyes. I was no longer able to know how to react to kindness like this. The woman brought me close to her chest. I hadn't been touched in four months. I missed the shadow of my mother, listening to the sounds inside her. I had not realized how cold I had felt for so long. This woman gave me her shadow and I wanted to live within it until I could be home again."[iv]

He does not stay. He is not ready to give up the hope of returning to his real home. But he visits her once a week until he leaves again.

If you feel moved, as I do, by the story of Valentino Achak Deng, just think of all the stories yet to be told. Listen for them; read them. And let yourself be changed by them. For that is what will allow you to help them.

In Denmark, the legend goes, the beloved King refused to let the Nazis single out the Jews by forcing them to wear yellow stars. Instead, he chose to wear one himself, and following his example, all the people of Denmark did likewise. This legend shows us what can happen when we identify with others. It takes moral imagination and courage to do as the King did - or rather, as people say he did - which suggests that many had this idea, and everyone saw its power.

As Carmen Agra Deedy, author of the children's story, asks in her Author's Note: "What if we could follow that example today . . .? What if the good and strong people of the world stood shoulder to shoulder, crowding the streets and filling the squares, saying, 'You cannot do this injustice to our sisters and brothers, or you must do it to us as well.' What if?"[v]

How to begin? By learning what you need to know, fact and story, until you too are moved to do what you can do. There are a few humanitarian aid groups managing to keep a presence in Sudan. Save the Children, to which we are giving our Generous Congregation offering this week, is one of them. For political action, Save Darfur is an international coalition of groups putting pressure on our government to intervene. And for those of us who are trying to learn, there is the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to help make the connection between then and now, so that the lessons from one genocide can teach us how to stop the next. Now we know; there must be something we can do.

_____________________________

[i] The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum web address is http://www.ushmm.org.
[ii] http://www.ushmm.org/conscience/alert/darfur/contents/01-overview/
[iii] http://www.ushmm.org/googleearth/
[iv] Dave Eggers, "What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng" (San Francisco: McSweeney’s, 2006).
[v] Carmen Agra Deedy, "The Yellow Star: The Legend of King ChristianX of Denmark" (Atlanta: Peachtree Publishers, 2000).