Today is a day to remember, it is the 64th anniversary of the liberation of the Jewish people from the concentration camp Auschwitz. It was a day of relief and a day of sadness. Sadness for those who’s lives were lost before they could be rescued…and a day of relief for those who were still alive and had a chance for survival. People want to forget the horrors of the concentration camps…or worse, they deny that it ever existed. The prisoners at the concentration camps were there because of hatred; they were feared and they were hated just because of their heritage. There is no excuse for genocide.
If we are allowed to forget the horror of such evil…it could happen again. If we deny that it ever existed then we are guilty of adding to the evil that took place and destroyed so many people. It is a time of world history that must be observed.
There are some who were there that still have memories of that time. There are some who have loved ones who went through the extreme torture that was the concentration camps. No group of human beings should ever be treated the way that the Jews were treated. We lost so many people that could have added culture, music, craftmanship, business accumen…and so much more to the world. It was and is a tragedy the likes of which we should hope to never see again.
Think about the suffering and the misery that they went through. The fear that consumed the soul. Yet, there were those who resisted, those who aided others by sharing what they had to keep others alive, there were those who tried to hide individuals and help them escape the power of the SS. The word hero is thrown around so often that people misunderstand the courage that it takes to stand strong in the face of evil, and destructive controlling power.
The human spirit is an amazing thing; the will to survive is amazing and can overcome many obstacles. There are many individual stories from the holocaust and it is important to document them when you have the opportunity. I posted an earlier story in this blog about Dina Gottliebova Babbitt, a talented artist who was incarcerated at Auschwitz. She was forced to use her talent to paint individuals and gypsies from the concentration camp for Dr. Josef Mengeles the angel of death who performed terrible “experiments” on those behind the gates.
You can read about her and her efforts to get her artwork returned to her before she passes from this world into the next here: https://writeasrain.wordpress.com/?s=dina+babbit . Do you know any stories of the survivors of the concentration camps?
Write where you are 