The History I Wish We Never Had

If you could erase one event from history, what would it be?

That’s a heavy question, isn’t it?

If I could erase one event from history, I think I’d choose the Holocaust.

Not because I want to erase the memory of it.

Quite the opposite.

I’d want every lesson, every name, every photograph, every testimony and every story of survival to remain. I would simply wish that the event itself had never happened.

Millions of people should never have had to experience that kind of cruelty.

Children should never have had their childhoods stolen from them. Families should never have been torn apart. People should never have been reduced to numbers, judged as less worthy of life because of who they were.

And perhaps the most frightening part isn’t only the scale of what happened.

It’s how many ordinary steps led there. Hatred doesn’t always arrive looking like hatred.

Sometimes it begins with jokes.

With labels. With “us” and “them.”

With deciding that someone else’s life matters a little less than yours.

With looking away when something feels uncomfortable.

One small act of dehumanization can make the next one easier.

That’s the part of history I find hardest to forget. Because while we can’t go back and change what happened, we can recognize the warning signs when they appear again.

And that’s why I wouldn’t erase the Holocaust from our history books.

I’d erase it from human history.

There’s an important difference.

We need to remember terrible things without becoming prisoners of them. We need to teach our children what happened without teaching them to inherit the hatred that caused it.

Remembering isn’t about living in the past.

It’s about refusing to repeat it.

If history has taught me anything, it’s that kindness isn’t some soft little extra we add to life when everything else is taken care of.

It matters.

How we speak about people matters.

How we treat the person who can’t do anything for us matters.

Whether we stand up when someone is being treated unfairly matters.

And perhaps most importantly, what we do when nobody is watching matters. Because history— unlike the one in the history books, isn’t only written by kings, presidents and generals. It’s also shaped by ordinary people deciding what they will tolerate.

So yes, if I had that impossible button in front of me, I’d press it.

I’d take that chapter away.

But I’d keep the memory.

I’d keep the lessons.

And I’d keep the reminder that every generation gets another opportunity to choose compassion over cruelty.

Maybe that’s the part of history we actually can change.

Not yesterday.

But what we do with tomorrow.

Stay fabulous,
Luce 💋