In Birmingham and the state, we have been inspired by the Holocaust survivors who have lived in our midst. They inspired the formation of the AHEC and have been our most powerful educational tool.
As an educator once said, “We must take a ‘body’ from the piles of bodies and bring that one person ‘to life.'” We must be reminded that each victim and survivor had a name, a face, a life, a family, and a community that more often than not was destroyed. Each was a mother, a father, a brother, a sister. When you bring this history down to the individual level, we begin to understand and develop compassion and empathy for the losses, in terms of what happens when the dangers of injustice, discrimination, and intolerance are allowed to permeate society.