Holocaust

[FrodeauxB at aol.com]

Kai,
Thanks for the answer. I understand your statement much better now. While 
there is room for debate on the use of the word Holocaust, there are other 
ethnic cleansings which need to be recognized and addressed. Overuse of a 
word not only cheapens it, but can cause the concept or event it is used to 
signify to be forgotten. We need another word-is ethnic cleansing OK for this:
The church registers' pages are yellowed, the ink faded, the handwriting 
difficult and in French, but the names filling those pages are familiar to 
anyone in south Louisiana even 230 years after Acadians smuggled the books 
out of Canada.
Thibodeaux, Hebert, LeBlanc, Landry, LaBauve, Gautreaux.
The history is also familiar: in 1755, the British army began forcing 
French-speaking residents of Acadia into exile in an 18th century version of 
ethnic cleansing. Redcoats razed settlements an effort to erase any trace of 
the French as they scattered the Acadians amongst English colonies along the 
Atlantic seaboard.
The settlement of Grand Pre (cf. "Evangeline") on the west coast of what is 
now known as Nova Scotia was in that first wave of 6,000 to 7,000 expulsions 
that bleak fall of 1755. Parishioners of St. Charles aux Mines Catholic 
Church managed to sneak out a set of registers that recorded the births, 
baptisms, marriages and deaths in that community from 1707 to 1748.
After a stint in Maryland, the registers' guardians were among the first wave 
of 210 Acadians to settle in St. Gabriel in Spanish Louisiana in 1767.
Beginning today and continuing for the next 15 days, the Congres Mondial 
Acadien will host almost 250,000 Acadians and Francophones from the US, 
Canada, Belgium, France and other countries as family reunions, concerts, 
lectures, exhibits, folk story telling and other events and celebrations 
commemorate the culture and heritage of the Acadians, culminating on August 
15 with Fete Nationale des Acadiens/National Day of the Acadians (see 
www.acadienmemorial.org). There were  approximately 3,000 Acadian refugees 
who ultimately settled in Louisiana. Some 500,000 Cajuns remember the 
diaspora of their forebears. Some still live on, farm, and hunt parts of the 
land originally settled by their ancestors. As Allen Babineaux, retired state 
judge and major player in the Congres said, "They tried to erase us. We are 
here. We live."
Vive la Acadiens! Vive la Louisiane!