Nie Wieder.

Never Forgive.

There are some evils in this world that are so reprehensible that the perpetrators go down in history as some of the most notorious men and women ever to walk the face of this earth. From the dark days of the Spanish Inquisition to 9/11 and its aftermath, from the government-sponsored genocides (Khmer Rouge) to cases of rampaging individuals going amok with no regard for anything else (Virginia Tech), these people--if one can still call them people--are so reviled that in extreme cases, they are accorded neither mercy nor sympathy when they receive their just penalty. Obvious case in point: The Holocaust. After the Second World War, Nazis were being hunted down like the rats the Soviet Army considered them to be. Even the uninvolved children of Nazi perpetrators are seen as evil, something that a Holocaust survivor named Elie Wiesel said was wrong, for "only the guilty are guilty; their children are not."

Never Forget.

Going back to my case, when the world learned of the systemic genocide perpetrated by the Nazis, it was horrified. Men, women, and children were murdered by the millions because they were mentally infirm, socially awkward, or of ethnic and religious affiliations that the ruling NSDAP loathed to the extreme. In 2001, almost 3000 people died as an immediate consequence of the 9/11 attacks. They were ordinary people: soldiers, office workers, firefighters, policemen, bankers, and the like. Just as the Jews, the Poles, and others were killed by the Nazis for being Jews, Poles, and others who happened to live in Nazi Germany and its occupied locales, these ordinary people were killed by Al-Qaeda for being ordinary people who happened to live, if not work, in the Eastern Coast of America. In both cases, the aftermath was the same: those who understood sought never to forget the evil that happened. In fact, since 2006, January 27 (on that day in 1945 the Soviets liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau) has been commemorated as the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. And of course the United States has Patriot Day in memory of those who died in 9/11.

BUT I DIGRESS.


Never Again.

Determined to ensure that atrocities like the Holocaust were to never again take place, the nations of this earth stood united. Despite this, incidents of scales that vary from Bosnia to Stalin's Russia to even al-Assad's Syria still occur. Is it a pipe dream to still hope that never again will the evil of genocide take place? Perhaps, but it is a noble cause.