Holocaust Memorial

I was privileged to participate in the Holocaust Memorial Service at Moses Montefiore Temple yesterday evening.  As always, it was a tremendously moving experience, and an honor to bring the words of survivors to life.  The horror, and darkness, of the Holocaust is, frankly, unimaginable to me.  How could ordinarily kind people not stand up against the darkness?  The answer, only to easy, is because of evil.  Not that the ordinary people considered themselves evil, or meant to choose evil, but merely went along and remained silent out of ignorance, or a sense of self-preservation.  That is how we choose evil, by not choosing to stand up for right, by choosing the path of self-preservation, the easy and wide path.  Evil grows from the small choices that we make, or do not make.
One of the presenters, a child of survivors, stated frankly, "That when we allow Holocaust deniers to speak, unchallenged, we murder again those six million."

Christians are called to remember that evil is ultimately defeated in the Cross and Resurrection, and we are called to be people of hope, of life, and to make decisions that lead to renewal and true peace.  We can only make those decisions, when the perpendicular pronoun, and its self-interest, are replaced with the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit.  Let us pray that the Spirit give us new minds to make holy choices to stand against evil and be the resistance in our age, to prepare for the coming King.

Here are several pieces that particularly engaged me during yesterday's liturgy.

We have come here to remember those who cannot be forgotten
We have come to speak of that which cannot be spoken but must not be left unsaid
We have come to remind not others but ourselves of what was done and what was not done
We have come to ask questions that cannot be answered but cannot be left unasked.
We know how to remember the dead we have known.
We know how to commemorate the death of one person.
But all of us are mourners; all of us recall not one but six million ones.
Not only those we have known, but those no one can know, the names that are forever lost.
Rabbi Reuven Hammer

As I light this candle, I vow never to forget the generations cut off, and the generations never born The brilliance, creativity, wisdom, kindness, goodness, caring. The inventions, medical advances, healing and solutions lost with them and lost perhaps for all time. Our world is bereft, and as we light this final candle, we remember all the irreplaceable souls, all the people who would have taken our universe to places of which we can't even dream. All the souls who would have made this world a much better place for each of us .

AT TEREZIN

When a new child comes
Everything seems strange to him.
What, on the ground I have to lie?
Eat black potatoes? No! Not I!
I've got to stay? It's dirty here!
The floor-why look, it's dirty, I fear!
And I'm supposed to sleep on it? I'll get all dirty!
Here the sound of shouting, cries,
And oh, so many flies,
Everyone knows flies carry disease.
OOOH, something bit me! Wasn't that a bedbug?
Here in Terezin, life is hell.
And when I'll go home again, I can't yet tell.
Teddy, 1943