18 January 2022
The Hebrew word today is a particularly important one for January 2022. Eighty years ago, on the 20th of January, Nazi leaders, comprising both government and SS ghouls, met at a villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to plan for the Final Solution to the Reich’s “Jewish question”. Cold-blooded reptilian efficiency, like all of Nazi plans, the conference took all of 90 minutes to decide how to continue what they were already doing with ruthless dispatch. More than six million Jews were murdered, along with 11 million Roma, Slavs, Serbs, and others deemed unfit to live in the brave new world envisioned by the Nazis.
The Hebrew word is “SHO” (שׁוֹא), from which we get “SHOAH”. The word is found many times in the Hebrew Bible, in various forms, from the Book of Job, to the Psalms, to the Prophets. Like most Hebrew words, it has a range of meanings in English: desolation, destroy, destruction, storm, devastation, and wasteness. A selection of its uses in the NIV translation:
Psalm 35: “May ruin (SHO) overtake them by surprise”
Proverbs 3: “Have no fear of sudden disaster or of the ruin (SHO) that overtakes the wicked”
Isaiah 47: “Disaster will come upon you, and you will not know how to conjure it away. A calamity will fall upon you that you cannot ward off with a ransom; a catastrophe (SHO) you cannot foresee will suddenly come upon you.”
Zephaniah 1:15: “That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble (SHO) and ruin (SHO), a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness”
There are many ways to honor the fallen from World War 2. We Americans commemorate Pearl Harbor Day, D-Day, and VE & VJ Days. Given that some 20 million were exterminated by the Nazis in Death Camps and other pogroms, including more than 6 million Jews, perhaps a “SHOAH Day” would be worth bringing to our consciousness: January 20th.
If you are a DC local, you can take in the world premiere of Fauquier Community Theatre’s production of Harry Kantrovich's “Shoah”, from January 21 to February 6. Go to FCTstage.org for more information. For further edification, navigate out to:
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