I wanted to thank Susan Eischeid for her editorial of June 10, which was in response to a piece you published by Larry Lyons. Topics like the Holocaust and the systematic lynching of African Americans are difficult to accept, not to mention discuss. It is all too easy for us to forget the lessons of history, especially if our exposure to the topic does not include first-hand accounts and testimonies.

My parents were alive to experience the Nazi occupation in Greece and both witnessed first-hand the collection of Jewish families on opposite sides of the country. My father even has an account of one such happening in his war memoirs, so powerful was this event in his mind as a youth. I have been lucky enough to hear these accounts, horrible to fathom, but important to remember. I have also been fortunate enough to meet some of the local descendants of the Mary Turner family and have felt the specter of her lynching haunting those who still remember.

I am reminded of an oft-quoted expression from Aldous Huxley here: “That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.” 

It’s a very uneasy feeling to consider such atrocities, but it’s necessary; and as Dr. Eischeid instructs us, doing so is what makes us human.

Aristotelis Santas, Valdosta