Last Friday was International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a time for all humanity to pause and reflect on the genocide that resulted in the death of an estimated 6 million Jewish people, 2 million nomadic people (gypsies), 250,000 mentally and physically disabled people, and 9,000 homosexual men by the Nazi regime in World War II.

At Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland last week, Jews and Christians walked slowly beneath the gate with the words "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Will Set You Free) and made their way as a group to the execution wall where they lit candles and prayed. Elderly survivors paid homage to the estimated 2 million to 2.5 million who were killed in the gas chambers by wearing striped scarves that symbolized the uniforms prisoners were given when they arrived at the death camp.Here in America, President Donald Trump remembered and honored the victims, survivors and heroes of the Holocaust, stating that it is "impossible to fully fathom the depravity and horror inflicted on innocent people by Nazi terror" during World War II.In my personal moment of reflection, I remembered Warren Goodman, a man I got to know in the last year of his life and who passed away earlier this month at the age of 93.Last year he gave me a World War II photograph which is now on display at the Southwest Florida Military Museum in Cape Coral. It shows Warren with a group of his wartime buddies with the 69th Infantry Division standing in front of a German air base, which they helped liberate at the end of the war.The photo shows Warren holding a Jewish flag. After his unit had taken the base, they ordered their captured German prisoners to serve a meal to the Jewish soldiers in the unit.Warren lived a full life. Born in Brooklyn, New York, he attended North Carolina State before enlisting in the Army in 1942. During his time in the European Theater, he participated in the Battle of the Bulge, the liberation of Dachau prison and was awarded the Bronze Star for valor.After the war, he opened his first of three camera shops in Caldwell, New Jersey, where he served in a number of civic organizations and actively skied, golfed and rode his motorcycles, even into his late 80s. He led motorcycle trips to Europe for 40 years and loved to ski the Alps.After selling his camera stores in 1985, he moved to Florida with his wife, Flori.Another elderly friend I've gotten to know in the past few years is a Polish woman named Leslie who also had direct knowledge of the Holocaust. Eighty years ago, she was a small girl living in Lodz, which became a ghetto for Polish Jews and then for refugee children, after the Germans invaded their country in 1939. Leslie was living with her grandmother at the time since both her parents were taken away and forced to labor in German factories.Even though she was a small girl, Leslie still has memories of the trainloads of Jews and children coming into Lodz. She also recalled the horror she and her grandmother experienced after stumbling across a mass grave while foraging for food in the woods.In marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day last Friday, Trump vowed to work to defeat "the forces of evil."To help him fulfill that pledge, the president has appointed some influential Jewish members to fill his cabinet and staff positions, including Jared Kushner, Trump's Orthodox son-in law who is serving as a senior adviser.Others include David Friedman, selected to be the U.S. ambassador to Israel; Steven Mnuchin, who will serve as Treasury secretary; Stephen Miller, as senior adviser for policy; Carl Icahn, as a special adviser on regulatory reform issues; Gary Cohn, who heads the White House National Economic Council; and David Shulkin, as leader of the Veterans Health Administration.During last week's speech, Trump pledged "to do everything in my power throughout my presidency, and my life, to ensure that the forces of evil never again defeat the powers of good."While the president made his comments in the name of the perished, it was also a reminder of the horror and terror that exists in the world today through murderous groups such as ISIS, who Trump has correctly named as a threat to America and the rest of the civilized world.By Jim Zbick |

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