Maybe you’re Jewish. Maybe you’re not. Maybe you know someone who’s Jewish. Maybe you don’t.

Maybe you’ve seen that commercial on TV recently with the blue square, which informs you that while Jews make up only 2.4 percent of the whole population of the U.S., we are victims of an inordinate 55% of the country’s hate crimes. Maybe that gave you pause, and endeared you to have compassion for Jewish people. Maybe you found it difficult to believe, or thought Jews were making a big deal out of nothing.

I’m here to tell you that we are not.

Today is Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day on the Jewish calendar. Today we remember the six million Jews who were murdered across Europe during World War II, one million of whom were children. Murdered not because of anything they did, but simply because of who they were. There was so much loss, so much decimation to the world’s Jewish population, that statistically we are still not quite recovered from it eight decades later. The goal was total annihilation.

I’m here today because that goal failed. And I feel strongly that I am here today to do what I can to keep that goal from finding fruition. Because Hitler may be gone, but that goal was not his alone, and that goal still persists for some.

Well, we persist too.

I happen to be a Holocaust educator in my community. I teach seventh graders about it in depth at Sunday School during the course of the year, and I lead the Yom HaShoah program at the Jewish private elementary school where I teach during the week. Today, at a level they could understand, I taught kids at ages from kindergarten to grade 5 about what this day is for, and what it means, and what we do. They learned about the miracle of our endurance and survival; they read poetry about the strength of holding to our identity. Then, they placed candles on a Star of David outlined on the floor while I read 100 names and ages of children who’d perished in the Holocaust.

Then they sang in Hebrew, a song about peace, slowly and softly at first, refraining several times, concluding with an upbeat clap and resounding volume, Amein. And if nothing else were to move you during this solemn thirty minute ceremony, I dare you not to feel goosebumps at the knowledge that dozens of Jewish children were gathered together to raise their voices in musical prayer, to honor the Jewish children whose voices had been snuffed out.

Never forget. Never again.