Thought for the Week: Keep the memory alive
Ian Kirk-Smith reflects on Holocaust Memorial Day
The 27 January is the seventieth anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Holocaust Memorial Day, held annually on this day, will be commemorated in homes, schools and communities both nationally and internationally. This year the theme is ‘Keep the memory alive’.
Holocaust Memorial Day is a day when people can pause to remember the millions who have been murdered or whose lives were changed beyond recognition during the Holocaust/Shoah. The Day is also dedicated to the memory of those killed in subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. 2015 is the twentieth anniversary of the massacre in Srebrenica.
In its immediate aftermath, the Holocaust went largely unacknowledged. Perpetrators and bystanders preferred to forget. A painful reality for European Christians is the complicity of many Christians and churches in the Nazis’ attempt to exterminate the Jewish people - a shameful chapter in a long history of Christian anti-Semitism.
The Holocaust is a sad reminder of what people are capable of. Commemoration gradually began in Israel, where many survivors had gathered. The industrial slaughter of European Jews, however, was viewed by some of those building a new country as an image of passivity. Today, times have changed.
Holocaust Memorial Day reminds us of a statistic: six million dead. Every one had a name and a story. At the heart of the event this year are human stories. One is highlighted in the news pages of the Friend this week. There is a review, in the books pages, of a novel based on the lives of real people who assisted Jews escape from the Nazis. A central character was involved in the Quaker response to the crisis faced by the Jewish people in the 1930s. Friends were there when it mattered.
The Day also challenges us to honour the survivors by learning lessons from the past. Discrimination and persecution, sadly, still haunt our society. Fear of the ‘other’ is part of the human condition. Stereotypes, and the hatred that often goes with them, continue. They simplify, distort and demean. Quakers have a clear position. There is ‘that of God’ in every individual and this belief compels us to action. It is morally wrong to apply stereotypes to any group who share a common identity and sense of belonging. They are made up of individuals. Faith groups, who are particularly vulnerable to being defined as ‘the other’, need support, love and understanding at this time, as Christopher Bagley reminds us in his opinion piece.
There have been very disturbing incidents of anti-Semitism across Europe, including Britain, in the wake of the recent murders in Paris. They are of grave concern.
The lessons of the past mean nothing if non-Jewish people today care more about the historical tragedy of dead Jews than the plight of living ones.
You need to login to read subscriber-only content and/or comment on articles.