Holocaust Remembrance Day; The Senseless Persecution Still a Problem

You were forced to register and wear an identifying badge.

You were ripped away from your homes, herded like cattle into box cars, and sent away to concentration camps.

In those camps you were starved, beaten, humiliated, shot, and gassed to death because you were Jewish.

It was the Holocaust of World War II and today marks Yom HaShoa, or Holocaust Martyr's and Heroes' Remembrance Day.

It started slowly as a discrimination and grew into a state-sponsored, systematic extermination of a people who were deemed inferior as a result of their religious belief and culture.

Dr. Jennie Goldenberg is a licensed clinical social worker in Bangor who has devoted her career to the study and documentation of holocaust survivors.

Goldenberg says she’s saddened that anti-Semitism is still a big problem throughout the world, commenting on stories that Jews were told they’d have to register in the Ukraine.

"Unfortunately the Ukraine was particularly harsh on Jews during World War II and so I think when times of unrest happen in Europe there's a lot of anti-Semitism, and it's happening across other parts of Europe as well," states Dr. Goldenberg.  "It just raises its ugly head over and over again."

Unfortunately, anti-Semistism is not just rearing its ugly head in Europe. It's an issue here in the United States as well.

Probably the most disturbing today is the continued call for Israel's destruction by radical Islamists behind the continuing conflict with Iran and Hamas.

Dr. Goldenberg says studying the stories of holocaust survivors has taught her a great deal in her work as a social worker as to how to handle people who have experienced and survived extreme trauma.