Remembering Past Pain

In September this year, while on holiday, I paid a visit to Auschwitz -Birkenau concentration camp. It was a harrowing experience - one of those places that stunned me into silence because of the horror of what went on there.

Keeping Auschwitz open as a place for visitors allows people to pay their respects to those who suffered so much because of Nazi rule, enables us to remember horrific events and to educate this and future generations so that such atrocities can be prevented from happening again.

For those of us who have not directly experienced war, it is too easy to forget the impact that conflict has on individual lives. The thing that affected me most in my visit to the death camp was the enormous pile of suitcases in a large display cabinet. For me, they turned the masses of people to whom they belonged into individuals. Each case had a person’s name inscribed on it and the place from where they had come. From then on, in my mind, the victims were no longer anonymous, but individual people with names and families and homes, whose lives had been destroyed by the power and oppression of others.

The trip was a sobering reminder of what humans can do to one another. What horrifies me is that oppression and violence still remain in our world. Power continues to corrupt those who have it. The scale of the Nazi cruelty was phenomenal and nothing compares with it, but we all know of countries today where people are oppressed and unable to speak out without disappearing or being killed. Zimbabwe and Burma spring to my mind immediately.

Each year in November, we hold Remembrance Sunday services, which help us to recall those who have been willing to sacrifice much for the good of others, to thank God for our freedom and to pray for those currently serving in our Armed Forces and support services around the world. Perhaps this year we should also commit ourselves to speaking out on behalf of those whose voices are not heard.

With best wishes
Sarah