The Importance of History

I will start out by saying I am a history geek.  History may be my favorite subject, and possibly the most important for the future.  I truly do believe that if humanity was not to study it history would be doomed to repeat.  The first thing I thought of when we wrote journals on our opinions on history repeating itself was a saying in Hebrew: "לדור ודור לעולם לא " (pronounced L'Dor V'Dor Laolam Lo).  A rough translation of this phrase is "From generation to generation never again".  The reason I bring this up is because maybe it is the job of those oppressed or their ancestors to make sure people continues to remember mistakes.  Many who have more fortunate and oppressive ancestors would prefer to not talk about these issues because of the guilt and blame they feel regarding them.  So maybe it is the job of the formerly oppressed to not make others feel guilt, but continue to share first hand stories and accounts and insure that history is not forgotten.  We don't need just classes, though.  We need remembrance days that are actually observed.  We have Martin Luther King Day, but there are certainly other important historical happenings that we barley ever think about, other than when we focus on them for a day in history class.