Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Martin Koby - April 20, 1999

Uh, do you think there's any meaning in all that? I mean, you're--the, the Holocaust--people in my profession tend to look at the Holocaust either as having a very important lesson or meaning for the, for the present or having none whatsoever. It's meaningless and ir...totally irrational. Do you think--is...

Is it human nature and this is, I, I suppose--is it human nature to destroy another human being constantly? Oh! You know and all my life I hear is wars, you know. If it's not in uh, Somalia, it's in Burundi or somewheres over there, there's still Rwanda. Or it's in Ethiopia. They--Eritrea--Ethiopia, the Jews and the Arabs. Uh, there's always going on something. The only thing that's quiet is right over here, Canada and United States and Mexico for the last hundred years.

But that's--you mean, over territory.

Over territory, over ethnicity, over...

Because this ???...

There's no killings, there's no killings. Or is it--or is it a Christian trait that if you don't have killings, you don't have nothing? The Christian church is guilty way beyond what we think it is, I--according to me.

Yeah. So is that, is that the meaning of the Holocaust that the, that the...

???...

Christian--that the church didn't do what it's--what it should have?

That's part of it.

Yeah.

Otherwise, why do they have--they had the crusades. What did they do with the crusades? What did Christianity do for the black people in Africa um, the Muslims? Peace! What did the Christianity do for the Indians of America--of the Americas? They destroyed them.

Uh-huh.

You don't accept Christianity, we kill you! Is that what we're supposed to be believe in? In order to live, we have to accept something that's being--our relatives were killed for nothing?

It--I'm, I'm wondering how many teachers teach that when they teach about the Holocaust. I mean, they do...

This...

...they teach the history of anti-Semitism but then they...

You know, I was going to go volunteer for the speaker's bureau. But I decided against it.

Why?

Because of what I said now. Because I was going to pose the question to these young people. And I'm afraid to do it. Is that what your faith is? I took two classes in Central American history because I had--you know, the--somebody said you know, you should--it's a good class.

Uh-huh.

You know, the silver, the Catholic church--to the Catholic church, silver and--and religion was more important than those millions of Indians that they destroyed.