Growing up in America today, I recognize that I am fortunate to live in a time of such boundless opportunity and spoiling convenience. I have a roof over my head and good food on the table, but I can’t forget that nearly half the world suffers from malnutrition. I aspire to continue on to college, but I can’t forget that only one percent of the population can boast that privilege. No matter how high this land of the free may allow me to rise, I will never forget the history of strife and disaster that has been taught to me in my past and present years of schooling. Especially burned into my mind is the horrifying period of history known as the Holocaust.

Our society today is one of custom and routine. We as humans develop our own little rituals, and we stick to them. Everyday, we go about our business, in and out like clockwork. Everyday, we stick. Hardly ever do we stop to consider diverting from our own beaten paths. Hardly ever do we want to consider what world lies outside our own. For the most part, everyday we fall so comfortably into the sense of security provided by this routine that we take this intangible asylum for granted. I admit I have my own routine. Still, part of this practice is remembering never to take the option of my sometimes-boring schedule for granted. I try to do this not only for my own benefit but also out of respect to those who have or have had lives and problems that exceed my darkest imagination, such as victims of the Holocaust.

For instance, last night I went to bed like any other night and dreamt of what my life will become. I dreamt of accomplishing my lifelong goals and of a life that is only filled with happiness. On the other hand, let’s say I was born in 1924, not 1984 and that I was born in Hungary, not the United States, much like Night author, Elie Wiesel I am now a target of Hitler’s death machine. Now, when I go to bed, on a cold November night of Kristallnacht, I hope that if I close my eyes tight enough, all the devastation and hate of this disastrous pogrom would miraculously halt right outside my door. I would hope that the two-day marathon of unjustified destruction against Jewish shops and people would die right there, and make a deathbed of its own broken glass. But when it didn’t and I found myself in Auschwitz, when I slipped into the merciless night it would partly be in hope that my soul would leave its wooden bed in peace, and not amidst the popping sounds of concentration camp gunfire.

When I go to bed then, I might dream of my old life, of my old neighborhood. I might dream of the time before I was told I wasn’t allowed to go to school anymore or of the time when I was allowed to be anybody’s friend without bothering big mean men who want to overthrow the government. I would dream and hope for a time when I could truly rejoice in my religion without fear of death. Instead of hoping for my own things for my own life, I would hope and pray for a future that was free of such fervent hate. Even if I could not live to see it, I would hope for a time when the world was human again, a time when one man’s daily routine did not include the dehumanization of his fellow man. I would dream of times that I scarcely remember as anything more than fantasies. I would dream of a society that is more like the one we live in now.

Likewise, this morning the sun shining in my face awakened me, but imagine that I lived in the Warsaw ghetto. Now, instead of the sun, this morning my immense hunger pains awaken me. Imagine that no matter how strong my faith, I cannot live on 180 grams of bread a day and 220 grams of sugar a month. Imagine that my father has been caught smuggling food, and he is sent to Warsaw’s main jail on Gesiowka Street. And imagine that I hope against hope that he has not been shot, but imagine that I know better. I wake up now and am assured that I am not dreaming, and that this hell is real. Now, I am in conflict over whether to help my old friends and remaining family, who have been thrown into this hell with me, or to only worry about my own desperate survival and deal with the consequences to my conscience later, if I am alive to do so. I am in conflict over whether my God has abandoned me or if with this daily anguish, I am paving the way for a better time, a time like ours today.

Imagine your own daily routine. Imagine that routine, no matter how simple, has somehow led you to your own destruction and doom. Imagine you are given no explanation or alternate option. Imagine that overnight you’ve been thrown onto a torturous hook, and you desperately squirm for freedom, but to no avail. Imagine that your persecutors are the only ones who refuse to ignore your existence. Imagine that the America that is so good to most of us today only allows in ten percent of its immigration quota between 1933 and 1938, and no matter how emaciated you’ve become you can’t fit through that crack. In essence, imagine that you are left to die in the eyes of the world, and these eyes, they simply look away without the slightest flinch. Attempt to imagine this as your daily routine and you may begin to understand the horror of the Holocaust. Imagine this and you can truly begin to appreciate the security of your own daily routine.