Yesterday I read that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the United States will be giving $15 million to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, to preserve the site of the concentration camp.

I learned about it from my main news source–Twitter, when someone that I follow tweeted a link to the story, with a comment that  indicated that she thought that we shouldn’t be spending the money because we’re broke. And also because genocide is nothing new.  Unfortunately, she’s right on both counts.

But I still say, spring for it.

Because $15 seems like a bargain if the alternative is forgetting.

I’m not even talking about the Holocaust deniers.  Because I consider those people just plain insane.  Having a discussion with those people is like arguing with people who claim that poultry speaks to them. In French.  I’m talking about the generations to come who will simply forget because the Holocaust is too painful to remember. Because the survivors, the first-hand witnesses will all be dead soon, and the accounts will become once-more removed.  And less believable.

Because it’s already hard to believe.

* * *

I’ve never been to a concentration camp, but Husbandrinka has.

So I interviewed him about his experience.  Because nothing says “Happy long weekend!” like a quick chat about the Holocaust.

In 1984,he went to Dachau, outside of Munich.  They went with some students for Oktoberfest and then, for extra fun, they went to Dachau.  Dachau was created early on in Hitler’s regime and its principal purpose was a political re-education camp.  Many people were sent there, by no means were Jews the only ones.  There were also Communists, trade unionists and political opponents.  Dachau has been preserved the way that it was back then–barracks and open spaces.  Many prisoners died, so there was a crematorium as well.

In 1993, Husbandrinka went to Liepzig.  The concentration camp wasn’t primarily an extermination camp.  It was a forced labor camp and a prisoner of war camp.  When Americans occupied the camp, they marched the people from Liezig to have a look at what was there.  They were horrified.  There were piles and piles of malnourished bodies.

Auschwitz is divided into two separate zones, approximately 2 to 3 miles away from each other.  Auschwitz itself was a forced labor camp, with electric wires surrounding it and signs in German stating “Warning” and “Life Threatening Danger”.  There are train tracks leading to Birkenau (which means “Birch Trees”) which was an extermination camp.

Husandrinka told me that being at Bikenau was almost a religious experience, because unlike the other places, there is almost nothing left.  The Russians razed it after they occupied it, and there is only a gate left, and the railroad signs.  When the train pulled up, they picked out able bodied people, and all the others were sent to the gas chamber.  The gas chambers are still there, but the Germans blew them up as they were retreating.

Despite all I’ve written about Husbandrinka’s insensitivity to my need to lounge and relax, shop and lounge some more, let me reassure you that he is very highly educated and kind of smart.  So it was interesting for me to talk to him about the difference between reading about these events as opposed to actually visiting.  His feeling is that to be on the actual site where hundreds of thousands people were murdered, where their bone fragments still remain is to be on sacred ground.  There have been other genocides, of course,  but I don’t think that it does anyone any good to compare horribles.  Husbandrinka thinks that the it is the highest expression of evil–the mechanical, industrialized planning.

I can’t help to think that if it was such a profound experience for my Husbandrinka, what an experience would be like for someone who has not studied the Holocaust, who did not have a good knowledge of the history what happened.

I’ve been thinking about this post for a while, and I wavered because this is a humor blog and this topic is decidedly not funny.

But it’s important and sometimes that trumps funny.

Last week, a 12 year old drowned in New York, in an outing with her class.  Obviously, this is a tragedy and it’s complicated by the blame being tossed around.  Not enough adults supervising the outing.  Kids going into the water when there were no lifeguards on duty.

A few days later, a three year old drowned with her nanny, when they slipped in the deep end of the pool.

Others will allocate blame.

I just want the drownings to stop.

I want swimming to be taught in schools, starting in nursery school. I want water safety to be treated seriously, as a life skill, because it is.

It is more important to know how to swim than it is how to ride a bike.

It is more important to know how to swim than to vacation at Disney.

All children should know how to swim.

There is a lot to learn about water safety here.

Drowning is the second cause of  unintentional death for children between ages 1 and 4 and 10 and 14.

Even if a child knows how to swim,  he can drown.  Olympic swimmers can drown.

We have to talk about it because we have to stop it.  Please look into water safety classes in your area and sign up for them.   Learn about water safety.   If you can’t find a reasonably priced swimming classes near where you live, email me at MarinkaNYC@gmail.com and I’ll help you find one.

Because I think it’s that important.

(If you came here to read something funny,  just hit refresh for 20 or so hours, and I’ll come up with something by then.  Promise.)