Holocaust Remembrance Day: January 27

The United Nations took a resolution in 2005 to establish January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day — that day chosen because it was on January 27, 1945 that the Red Army liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration and death camp. Researchers and demographers have documented a genocide that included 200,000 Romani people, 250,000 mentally and/or physically disabled people, 9000 gay men, and 6,000,000 Jewish people. Of the six million Jews killed, one and a half million were children. No doubt there were more victims as yet undocumented.

The “ripple effects” (which makes it sound more benign that it is) have only just begun, more than 70 years later, to be recognized and understood. But that analysis is for another day. Today, we just remember. This poem by Raymond Friel does it better than I ever could.

Holocaust Memorial Day  ~  27 January  ~  by Raymond Friel

 One day

In a concentration camp

Two men and a boy

Were sentenced to execution

By hanging.

 

The men died quickly.

The boy, lighter, took longer.

The prisoners were made to watch.

A voice cried out,

“Where is God?”

 

Then there was silence.

Did God die

In the concentration camps?

Is it possible to pray

After such horror?

 

We pray now

Because some prayed in the camps

In the deepest darkness

We cry out,

“Where was humanity?”

 

We commit ourselves

To remember

That six million Jews

And others the Nazi regime

Labelled expendable

Were gassed to death

With cyanide,

Their dead bodies burned in furnaces,

Their ashes carried

On the wind.

 

We are not innocent

For manycenturies

Christians were hostile to Jewish people

Persecuted them

For the death of Jesus.

 

The holocaust took place

Within living memory,

In one of themost educated

And Christian countries

In history.

 

We beg forgiveness

For the crimes against the Jewish people.

Against humanity.

And pray for the grace

To be vigilant

 

To stand up

Against anti-Semitism and racism

In any shape or form

We may encounter it

In our world today.

From Raymond Friel’s Prayers for Schools

http://www.rpbooks.co.uk/products/1784/prayers-for-schools-prayers-resources-for-teachers

Author: kathleenschatzberg

I'm a writer, an educator -- 45 years in education, 35 of them in community colleges -- and a lifelong advocate for justice (community colleges are, in fact, instruments of social justice). I have always been passionate about learning, traveling, and understanding the world's religions and political systems. This "Crossroads" blog offers my reflections on living for 7 months as a volunteer at Tantur Ecumenical Institute. On a hill in Jerusalem, within sight of Bethlehem, Tantur hosts students, scholars, and seeker for interfaith engagement and theological and biblical study. View all posts by kathleenschatzberg