Never Again, 2023

Never Again is a reflection on what it means to live in a world of never-ceasing genocide. In my Jewish religious school upbringing, the phrase "Never Again" was used to mean that we should never let the Holocaust happen again. The Holocaust killed 6 million Jews and 5 million Russians, Roma, gays, and others. Today, 2 million ethnic Uyghurs in China are being targeted for assimilation and elimination, using the same techniques the Nazis used: ghettoization, concentration camps, forced sterilization, and murder. What does "Never Again" mean in a world where genocide is not only not confronted, but a never-ending, ongoing part of our world? Rather than Never Again, we live in a world of Always Again. This piece asks us to, at least for a moment, not look away. The photos of imprisoned men and women come from leaked documents hosted at xinjiangpolicefiles.org. The images of Holocaust victims come from Yad Vashem, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Faces of Auschwitz. The song The Last Butterfly is based on a poem by Pavel Friedmann, who wrote it while he was imprisoned in the Therensienstadt ghetto. It was found among his papers after he was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was murdered. The song was written by Lisa Glazter-Shenson, and can be found on the album The Complete NFTY Recordings, 1972-1989. It was often sung when I was a child to commemorate the Holocaust.