Auschwitz survivors commemorate anniversary online amid pandemic
WARSAW, Poland — A Jewish prayer for the souls of the people murdered in the Holocaust echoed Wednesday over where the Warsaw ghetto stood during World War II as a world paused by the coronavirus pandemic observed the 76th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
Most International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorations were being held online this year due to the virus, including the annual ceremony at the site of the former Auschwitz death camp, where Nazi German forces killed 1.1 million people in occupied Poland. The memorial site is closed to visitors because of the pandemic.
In one of the few live events, mourners gathered in Poland’s capital to pay their respects at a memorial in the former Warsaw ghetto, the largest of all the ghettos where European Jews were held in cruel and deadly conditions before being sent to die in mass extermination camps.
German President FrankWalter Steinmeier, in a message to a World Jewish Congress and Auschwitz memorial museum event, said
the online nature of remembrance events takes nothing away from their importance.
“It’s a duty but also a responsibility, one we inherit
from those who lived through the horrors of the Shoah, whose voices are gradually disappearing,” Steinmeier said. “The greatest danger
for all of us begins with forgetting. With no longer remembering what we inflict upon one another when we tolerate anti-Semitism and racism in our midst.”
“We must remain alert, must identify prejudice and conspiracy theories, and combat them with reason, passion and resolve,” Steinmeier said.
From the Vatican, Pope Francis said remembering was a sign of humanity and a condition for a peaceful future while warning that distorted ideologies could lead to a repeat of mass murder on a horrific scale.
In Germany, the parliament held a special session to honor victims. In Austria and Slovakia, hundreds of survivors were offered their first doses of a vaccine against the coronavirus in a gesture both symbolic and lifesaving given the threat of the virus to older adults. In Israel, some 900 Holocaust survivors died from COVID-19 out of 5,300 who were infected last year.
It all came about in this way. Steve, in his 20s, was driving normally down a street when suddenly a little girl emerged from the curb right into the path of his car and he hit and killed her. All were devastated.
The idea of taking life from an innocent person was foreign to everything Steve stood for. He was a faithful church goer. Steve talked about it once in a sermon for he became the pastor of one of the most outstanding Baptist churches in North America, just as we predicted he would when he was in seminary.
He had been through the dark night of the soul. He recalled that the family commented on their daughter darting out into the street, “She was always doing that,” they said.
How can a Christian process this event with the promised love and watch care of God? The first step in self forgiveness is to realize the Bible teaches that God loves us and will care for us unstintingly.
We are promised presence, a presence in all of life’s joys and sorrows. We are not promised immunity.
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ. Shall tribulation or distress . ... I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.”
No member of Steve’s congregation can come to this pastor with a hurt greater than he has endured.
A second step in self forgiveness, indeed of all good mental health, is to reach out and help another. It is a law of life that mutual pain is reduced when shared.
Lean on God, cherish God’s promises, walk in God’s will, and reach out in love.
Some decades ago in a small western town, a girl in high school caused a wreck in which one of her girlfriends, a classmate, was killed.
I do not know all the circumstances nor how she found the faith to cope. I do not believe she has written about it in her memoirs, though write she certainly can.
There she was, an only child in a small town and feeling pretty miserable about life, but a few years elapsed and her natural warm personality and quiet ways were noticed by a newcomer, a dashing young man from a distinguished family. They dated and soon married.
In fact, he entered politics and she found herself the first lady of our land for eight years. Laura Bush was one of the most empathetic and best listeners ever to grace the White House. Wonder why? This is due in no small part to the overcoming depth of her faith tested by unintended tragedy.
We all make mistakes. Self forgiveness is a hard row to hoe, but it is doable, for no part of life is beyond the forgiveness and healing of a loving God.