The Holocaust Didn’t Start With Gas Chambers

Cedar Valley News
January 27, 2026
The Holocaust Didn’t Start With Gas Chambers
By: George Khan
From the fictional town of Cedar Valley, where characters from Quiet Echo continue to respond to real-world events.

Today marks eighty-one years since the liberation of Auschwitz.

I am a Muslim. My wife, Aisha, is Muslim. Our children are being raised in the faith of our fathers. And I am writing today about the murder of six million Jews because their deaths belong to all of us—not as shared guilt, but as shared responsibility. What happened in those camps was not a Jewish tragedy. It was a human one. And if we forget that, we have learned nothing.

The United Nations has designated this day International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The theme this year is “Holocaust Remembrance for Dignity and Human Rights.” Those are good words. But words are cheap if they don’t change how we live.

Earlier this month, Teresa wrote about Eva Schloss, Anne Frank’s stepsister, who is still alive at ninety-six, still telling her story, still warning us. Dan wrote about the duty to remember. And I keep thinking about something Eva said in an interview years ago: “The Holocaust didn’t start with the gas chambers. It started with words.”

Words like “they.” Words like “those people.” Words that draw lines between us and them, between neighbor and stranger, between human and something less. The killing came later. First came the language that made the killing possible.

I run a healing circle here in Cedar Valley for people reentering society after prison. Men and women who made mistakes, served their time, and are trying to find their way back. Some of them have done terrible things. All of them are human beings. And one of the first lessons we learn together is this: the moment you stop seeing someone as fully human, you have taken the first step toward something monstrous. It doesn’t matter if you’re the one holding the power or the one under the boot. Dehumanization is the seed. Everything else is just the harvest.

The Holocaust did not happen because Germans were uniquely evil. It happened because ordinary people—shopkeepers, teachers, parents—allowed themselves to believe that their neighbors were not really neighbors. That the family down the street was not really a family. That the children being loaded onto trains were not really children.

That is the lesson. Not that monsters exist. We already knew that. The lesson is that monsters are made, one small compromise at a time. One turned head. One silence when speaking would have cost something. One joke that wasn’t really a joke. One law that seemed reasonable at the time.

Here in Cedar Valley, we have learned—the hard way—what happens when fear gets louder than love. When my family first arrived, not everyone was glad to see us. There were words. There were looks. There were people who saw “Muslim” before they saw “neighbor.” But there were also people who reached across the divide. Dan Larson was one of them. Teresa Nikas was another. Caleb Mercer, who had every reason to distrust us, became a friend.

That didn’t happen because we ignored our differences. It happened because we refused to let our differences define us. Because we chose to see each other as neighbors first. Because we decided that the person across the table was worth knowing, even when it was uncomfortable.

What do we owe the dead? We owe them memory. But memory without action is just nostalgia. The six million did not die so we could light candles once a year and feel sad. They died because too many people stayed silent, stayed comfortable, stayed out of it.

We honor them by refusing to stay silent. By speaking up when the words start—before the gas chambers, before the camps, before the laws. By seeing our neighbors as neighbors, even when it’s hard. By remembering that every atrocity in history began with someone deciding that another person didn’t count.

Eighty-one years. The survivors are almost gone. Soon there will be no one left who can say, “I was there. I saw it. It was real.”

When that day comes, it will be up to us to remember. To tell the story. To make sure the world never forgets what happens when we stop seeing each other as human.

That is what we owe the dead.

— George Khan owns Khan’s Deli and runs a healing circle for those reentering society. He believes the best way to honor the past is to build a better future.

This editorial is part of the fictional Cedar Valley News series. While the people and town are fictional, the national events they reflect on are real.

Want to know the full story behind Cedar Valley? Teresa, Caleb, Dan, and the community you’ve come to know in these editorials first came together in Quiet Echo: When Loud Voices Divide, Quiet Ones Bring Together. Discover how a small town found its way from fear to fellowship—one quiet act of courage at a time. Available on Amazon: https://bit.ly/3ME4nSs

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