NEWS

REMEMBER AND LEARN

• If This Is a Man.
•  
• You who live safe
• In your warm houses,
• You who find, returning in the evening,
• Hot food and friendly faces:

• Consider if this is a man
• Who works in the mud,
• Who does not know peace,
• Who fights for a scrap of bread,
• Who dies because of a yes or a no.
• Consider if this is a woman
• Without hair and without name,
• With no more strength to remember,
• Her eyes empty and her womb cold
• Like a frog in winter.

• Meditate that this came about:
• I commend these words to you.
• Carve them in your hearts
• At home, in the street,
• Going to bed, rising;

• Repeat them to your children.
• Or may your house fall apart,
• May illness impede you,
• May your children turn their faces from you.

• Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz. Collier books 1961.

Today, we remember that Auschwitz was liberated 70 years ago by the Soviet Army. Primo Levi was one of the survivors of Nazi-Germany's "policy" to exterminate Europe's Jewish citizens. Ultimately he ended his life as he could not cope with the horrible memory. I attach the testimony of another survivor; she survived and is present in Auschwitz today. In her experience, only forgiving is an option. I sincerely hope that all officials and others present in Auischwitz may learn from what they commemorate.

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