The long shadow of World War II and the Holocaust darkened my youth as my parents—their childhoods marked by suffering—struggled in life.

I was 5 years old when my mother first told me of the horrors she and my father experienced as children in Europe during the 1930s and ’40s. Although I was young, her words left a lifelong mark that I still feel so many years later as an adult with my own children.

That menacing shadow still hovers over me, but I don’t push it away. I welcome it. It reminds me of my blessings as well as my responsibilities.

May 6 was Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, a time to pay tribute to the victims of that atrocity. This year is especially significant as it marks the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the extermination camps from Nazi persecution.

Although we’d like to believe differently, the lessons of the Holocaust have not been learned. Genocide persists in various corners of the world, and hatred and intolerance continue to thrive, breeding terrorism, oppression and poverty.

Daily we see people unkind to one another on the roads, in parking lots, on the school playground, in the workplace and in the home. The news is full of tragic stories of beatings and killings related to anger and misunderstanding.

Our elected leaders on both the national and local levels fight in public, barely reaching a level of civility.

Respect, courtesy and kindness have become old-fashioned words that no longer have meaning for us.

Our children sit in front of violent video games, movies and television shows. They also watch us and, whether we want to admit it or not, model our behavior.

We rush through life trying to keep up physically, financially and materially. We are stressed and we are tired. Pausing for reflection has become a luxury, if not altogether extinct. We become immune to the bad things going on around us because we just don’t have the time or energy to deal with them.

But we must make the time. We must find the energy. In our own homes we must teach our children understanding and acceptance of others. We must treat one another with consideration.

Once my parents and other Holocaust victims no longer live, that bleak time in history will join the many others that seem historically distant and not part of our consciousness.

Don’t push the shadow away. Hang on to it; illuminate it by your actions.

That is the purpose of Holocaust Remembrance Day. We need to take time in our own lives to be spiritual, to reflect, and to acknowledge and confront the potential for evil that resides in all of us.