The second session I attended was when the keynote speaker addressed us. I thought it was very odd that a District Attorney would be the keynote speaker at an event about the Holocaust. Was she going to talk about the role of lawyers or the law in either presiding over the Holocaust or in the trails of the SS members who carried out the awful orders?
No, she spoke about what people should have done. She talked about her experience going to a Holocaust Museum training for law enforcement and how it changed her life. All injustice must be fought she taught us, no matter how small and no matter what the risk to one's self. The Holocaust didn't begin at the death camps, it started with gradual steps to strip Jews of their citizenship and their rights.
She applied these lessons in her own life. She was called a villain for a supposed back-room deal to keep a senator's son out of trouble. However she had seen the physical evidence and knew about the circumstances and considered giving the boy the full penalty would be unjust. She decided then and there that she didn't care about reelection, she wasn't going to ruin the life of that young man.
Her son compared it to the District Attorney overseeing the Duke Lacrosse scandal. That District Attorney was up for reelection and decided to get national attention, which is why it was in the news. However when evidence surfaced that would prove the innocence of the young men the District Attorney had worked to cover it up in order to save face for the election and ended up losing and getting disbarred. The career had been put over the lives of other humans in importance.
She went on to talk about other instances where her experience had given her the moral courage to stand up for what is right and just. She also talked about how she has worked to get similar training to all the District Attorneys in the state of Arizona and all the Judges of the state of Arizona, and now people from all over the nation are getting similar training sessions catered to them. Judges hear about the roles Judges played many times against their better judgment in supporting the Holocaust, District Attorneys heard about prosecutors, and police hear about the round ups that took place.
An interesting thing about the conference, there were instances that were brought up when people actually got Hitler and the Nazi government to back down because enough of them protested. A repressive regime can only exist when the people allow it to, whether it's housewives (yes, housewives of Jewish men beat Hitler by protesting) judges, attorneys, teachers, or anyone else.
Several thoughts occurred to me as I listened to her speak
1. I wish she was the District Attorney in my county
2. I wish there were more people like her in government
3. I remembered something my atheist friend Dr. Singh had brought up, "If God is so great and loving why did he let the Holocaust happen?" The answer I came up with to that question came into my mind, sometimes it takes dramatic examples to teach His children; to get through to them. That thought though a little comforting made me a little sad.
It was truly a wonderful experience to be there with my fellow educators and receive an education myself.
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