'Come as you are...' a third generation holocaust survivor and why I stopped talking about racism

Our most core human need is to survive, followed by our need to belong. Safety, inclusion and the sense of belonging are not something I am naturally familiar with. Most of my life I have been confronted with direct and indirect exclusion. Exclusion has come as a critical thinker, as a Jew, a Muslim, a woman and most of all, by not fitting in the system as a respectable person. Trough life I learned that our common history has often been written one sighted. This has brought me to make a life quest, on my own pace, to educate myself on what has happened, what my own family culture is/was and how the second world war relates to me personally.

I am offering you my personal perspective, experiences and leanings of being a third generation holocaust survivor. I want to share my thinking on racism and exclusion. I choose to socially withdraw myself from conversations about racism and want to explain why. My whole life I have been groomed by society and most media to not trust or value, who I am. I may have not known better then, but I know better now. The truth hurts when I realize that I have been lied to all my life. I hope you will enjoy reading my journey.

Introduction

My faith, values and ethnicity are strong elements of my identity. To hide these was a decision to protect myself and stay away from trouble. I have a conflict avoiding character and this seemed to make sense for a long time. With my fathers Dutch last name and my blue eyes, I did not stand out in the Netherlands. This has helped me to blend in and enjoy my life in private with my communities and friends. I feel that the world is challenging me to speak up! Last week I took the step of embracing my true self by wearing a hijab and this blog is my next try. Speaking up is difficult because identity and values are very personal and they carry a lot of emotion.

My journey of discovering my identity and family history

Being a third generation holocaust survivor has made me aware not to take any fundamental human right for granted. I have enjoyed the pleasures of living in the Netherlands where freedom used to be a core value. I enjoyed travelling, being in the good company with people from all walks of life and from various places on the world. I enjoyed nourishing and tasteful foods to promote my holistic health and life approach. I enjoyed the freedom to make my own decisions to accept Islam as my religion of peace. I enjoyed access to healthcare when I had cancer. I enjoyed having access to my local theaters, lunchrooms and other small business, were I found a human connection and spark to lighten my day.

Being from Jewish descent, the reality of the second world war is something I carry in my heart every day. My Polish grandfather was the only one of his family who survived the horrors of several concentration and labor camps. He survived because he was registered to be a political prisoner of the Polish resistance and not as a Jew. My grandmother was Iraqi and lived an acknowledged life as an educated woman at the silk road city of Basra in Iraq. My grandparents met in Israel where they started a new life hoping for peace. Although my grandparents have passed, the war is still ongoing today. Growing up Jewish and aware of what happened to my family, I have been sensitive to hate, discrimination, violence, dehumanization and oppression of people.

Once in a while I take trips to follow my quest. I mostly visit Israel to go on discovery adventures as my family live there. I have visited Poland and Germany to discover my grandfather and his family's history.

When I was nineteen I went on a Fact Finding Mission to Israel. This trip thought me about the history, problems and risks involved with living on both sides in the ongoing war. The most impressive peace effort was a project that connected family of victims from both sides to understand each others situation and find community resolution. This organization created an environment to cry and mourn about the victims of the institutionalized systems of hate together. It is difficult to hate someone in their face. It is easy to have unconscious bias and discriminate as it comes natural to all of us. These people chose to talk to their 'enemy' and found friendships and compassion.

A few years ago I visited Poland as a part of the March of The Living tour. We went to see Warsaw and various memorial sights trough the country and concentration camps. These places are fundamental to my family history and my identity. Warsaw was once the heart of the Jewish world and had a flourishing Jewish culture with high standards of living. The unity of the people both Polish and Jewish created heroes of the uprising. These heroes fought for human rights and were sometimes successful to save Jews and also other minorities who lived there. Because pictures say more than words.. a small collection follows.

On the Warsaw Uprising Memorial Day many flowers were brought at the memorial sights. These yellow flowers are meant to remember and honor the memory of those who found the bravery to speak up or silently took action to safe lives. Some remarkable stories and inspiration can be found at the website of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews.

The Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery. The toxins from the bodily fluids in this mass grave are still visible in the grass today. People were locked within the Ghetto walls and starved with no way to escape. When the people started dying they were thrown in these mass graves to prevent outbreaks of disease.

This is the enclosed Ghetto, which was once a flourishing community and home of my family. It was bombed and only one corner of a wall still exists. This is a (4 min) story to describe the reality of life in the Ghetto.

My notes on the people my grandfather named to archive at the Yad Vashem museum.

I have way more pictures and stories but I don't to be perceives as someone who enjoys being a victim. Although I am still processing all this, I am not a victim anymore as I have consciously decided to set the direction of my own life.

If you want to learn more we can discuss this maybe in live session or I can make a compilation on YouTube. Two last remark I want to make in regards of the children during that time. My fellow traveler Judith van der Wel wrote a beautiful book 'Spiegelmoeders' on the life of the twins Judy and Selly (1927) from Amsterdam who were part of the dr. Mengele medical experiments/torture as part of the eugenics program in Auschwitz.

To end this sad part, a painful but true quote from Albert Einstein that I feel is still very relevant to me today.

Why I stopped talking about racism

The word race is something that I associate with the Nuremberg Race Laws from 1935. These were two laws to exclude Jews from citizenship and denied them from their natural rights. The laws were founded as legal instrument to differentiate the people and group us into more and less valuable members of society. Race as a fabricated legal terminology is still today widely used to spread hate and polarize us and to blind us from seeing that we are all homo sapiens. We are one race, one love! I have decided no longer to attend these conversations. I still do love to talk about diversity and equal opportunity for all (Introverts/extroverts, complementing visions from different backgrounds and a healthy energy that is created by reflecting the honorable representation of all within society).

To state that someone is racist or has to be anti-racist implies that there are more races. There are not more races (According my DNA test I do have almost 2% Neanderthal in me, which actually is one other race) but there are many etnicities. You can do a blood transfusion with any human, Jew, Muslim, Aboriginal, Inuit, Indian (from any cast) as long as the blood types match. I find that the idea of racism is being abused by the globalist agenda to divide humanity. I believe we should be looking for any commonality we have as humans and protect all fundamental human rights, starting with the most vulnerable people within our societies. I do not see how I can fit in one 'race'.

I think talking about someone being racist is a behavior that is not only narcissistic but also toxic. Talking about someone being racist implies that you claim to be an authority to speak on this matter. There is no authority on racism as it does not exist. We are humanity and we all make constant mistakes as we are wired to discriminate the unfamiliar. The only way to end unfair treatment of minorities is for each and everyone of us to be humble enough to understand that we all make mistakes. We can learn how to develop our values and learn to reflect on who we exclude. With the new cultural approach of stating anti-racism and calling others racist we are creating a new taboo. The cultural approach of the white man, who was sitting in front of the bus, has to sit in the back now and has to shut up. All of my first mentors in Tech have been white men. Their guidance and support has meant the world to me. Within corporations we see that quantity of diverse people goes over the quality. Why don't we look for true diversity in thinking and perspectives with our core values and naturally monitor the progress on that?

A third reason why I won't join conversations that use the word race is that I don't want to support the new taboo. I want to know about how people feel about me. If the people who have negative discriminating feelings to me are not allowed to express their fears and hate to my face. How will I never know? The fears and hate will boil within them without having the opportunity to express it. I rather have someone saying in my face that they hate Jews, Muslims, Israeli's or even Dutch people. I take it light and can smile when someone tells me that (which still happens often). It offers me a setting to show my human face. It is difficult to hate me when I am smiling at you or when I show you that I care. I want to have a dialogue to find our commonalities and show that I don't want to change anyone's identity or take anyone's culture away other than that which is toxic and dehumanizing like the word race.

Please stop being so political correct and tell each other with respect what worries you and what you are scared from. Feel free to contact me if you are worried about the growth of the number of Muslims in the Western World. Feel free to contact me when you think all Jews are part of the free masons and Zionists are ready to destroy the world. I will explain calmly that we are all facing oppression and I will be there to listen to your worries and fears. Discrimination (negative and positive) has impacted most people on this planet with exclusion to have their fundamental human rights denied. I hope we can start the dialogue and listen to the ones who are suffering and stop this destructive outside in globalist thinking on how we can change the system. Think global, act local. Look for the human spark. Ask your neighbors (who you never talked to) and smaller organizations in your area how they are doing.

One of the bigger lies (not the biggest one) in the Netherlands is how we should feel about Moroccans and Islamophobia. If you want to learn about my Moroccan heroes and Islamophobia you can check my blogs Celebrating the Moroccan Culture & Community and my life struggles with dealing with Islamophobia 'Come as you are, do what you love, build the future you want' - Assalamu alaikum - Here I Am!'.

The impact of being a third generation survivor on my daily life

Like my grandfather and my currently imprisoned mother (My Iboga Story), I have low trust in authority because of the injustice towards humanity. I follow the laws as I need to and work with the system as I can not avoid it.

As a Muslim, human and a Dutch citizen who cares, I can not be silenced anymore when I see injustice. Human rights are no longer a priority our authorities. Division with the purpose of control and oppression of the people has been integrated fundamentally in our systems and it is flourishing with propaganda and censorship. During my life I have faced hate, discrimination, intimidation up front directly and indirectly and have been victimized by the system countless times. I have been vulnerable for a long time as I came from a broken family and feeling over responsible. Without a steady income, a home, lack of guidance, discrimination and intimidation by the authorities, life has truly been brutal to me and my family for generations. By observing all this I became careful of showing my true identity to society but currently I feel there is not so much to loose. Speaking up means that I will not unmindfully float in the set direction of dehumanizing. I will not be the one who is looking away by using instant gratification and hedonism.

The only right that remains is the right to have access to healthcare when you are infected by a specific disease. Most other fundamental human rights have been set aside for unknown time. As a legal student I was thought that our national state law to protect human rights especially during crises. I am seeing the parallels of current times with the second world war. Remembrance of those who fought during the uprisings and expressing my gratitude to those who are still actively fighting for all fundamental human rights and humanity are become more and more important parts of my journey.

I love to work in technology as I have empowered myself to see from an industry perspective how we can make technology serve humanity. I grasp every opportunity when I can contribute to humanity. Some examples are my support for the digital education programs to empower refugees, youngster, women and anyone who have had lack of opportunity or guidance. I try to empower with blogs such as 'Empowering Tech Opportunities for You and Your Community' and 'Empowering Students - Digital Career Planning Tips' and have set up an Empowerment Community to help and inspire each other with information and support. 

I actively support people to stop being just a diamond in the rough and start shining with their potential. I hope we all can support those in need of guidance to take in their honorable position in society. We should embrace the diversity of personal perspectives. Especially those who are silenced and oppressed have the hidden information which we need in the technology industry to reshape the technology business to prioritize ethics and the risks which are involved of a sell of advanced technology to serve unethical authorities.

Sometimes I am not strong and I feel that the reality still is, like Michael Jackson says it so accurately. They don't care about us.

Do we care about the children that are now in locked within broken families? Children who are locked in with their sexual or physical abusers? Do we care about the people who are struggling with cancer or other diseases? Do we care about victims of human trafficking? Do we care about our prostitutes who are no longer visible? Do we care about those who are facing loneliness? Do we care about the people who have a more holistic approach to health? Do we care about prisoners who have been set in isolation? Do we care about the people who lost their jobs who were already struggling? Do we care about the people who have mental problems and what about their families and children? Do we care about the students who have no perspective anymore? Do we care about children's offline development and their sense of building friendships and play together? Do we care about children who are not guarded by parents and what they do online and for them not to fall within the wrong hands? Do we care about the businesses who are not able to invest in digital transformation? I care and I worried every day.

There is enough for everybody when we change our mindset by setting healthier boundaries for ourselves and to guard the fundamental human rights of others. We need to be strong and take action for humanity and fundamental human rights for all. Climate change has been there for longer than us humans and it will continue to disrupt humanity. Remember that we are groomed to under estate our civil power to demand change and more important to be the change we want to see. Hate, discrimination, violence, dehumanization and oppression are not something of the past. These are a serious threats against humanity and are becoming now visible for me now also on the surface in our Dutch society.

The momentum that we live in is accelerating the digital transformation. We as a technology industry have to be more aware of human rights then ever. I mostly hear sounds about diversity and inclusion and accessibility. These are great developments but definitely not enough as the pace of the developments in technology are evolving so rapidly that the risks involved align to this tremendous growth. We need to go deeper and understand not only how we can empower every person and organization to achieve more, but how we can empower every organization and person to ethically achieve more with human rights in consideration. Currently to many technology companies empower to achieve more oppression and control. It is time to stop to setting good intentions and to start listening locally, everybody for themselves to learn about how big our circle of influence really is. I hope we as an industry can continue our path of growth to serve humanity, the animals, the planet and our own core values above financial gain.

With the direction of division within society, I want to ask you to let go of hate to the other. We all have things in common and can compliment each other to create change. We are humans and want to live in peace with our own communities that we belong to. Consider our fundamental human rights instead of hedonism as something that unites us in our desire to survive and belong. We can build the future we want with respect for our rights as human beings that we owe to each other.

As a last note I want to say that I still have hope, there is not much left but there are many people who are standing up now for human rights. These are my heroes. Please stop silencing and censoring my human rights, animal rights, planet rights hero's who speak truth!

Thank you for taking the time to learn about my identity and perspective. I truly appreciate it!

If you know who you are, it is time to take action. Believe in yourself we can be the change we want to see. We are going to build better backs (spine) together. ;) We have each other's back!

“…Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves…” (Qur’an, 13:11)

Tip! - Getting started guide for beginners! Check this excellent 10 Steps on How to Change the World guide from an Islamic perspective to compliment your own individual perspective.