I feature my mother’s testimony in my teaching because it gives my students a direct link, through me, as my mother’s son, to the genocide that was the Holocaust, writes Menachem Z. Rosensaft.

Moe than 50 survivors gathered Monday at the site of the former camp. Many participants believe it will be the last major observance with any notable number of survivors.

That creates risks: the Holocaust didn’t begin with mass murder. The dehumanization of Jews progressed gradually from public exclusion to eventual internment to finally extermination. Millions of regular Germans—and Europeans more broadly—facilitated or silently accepted these actions.