Holocaust Memorial Day

(image from union-news.co.uk)

The minister who came to take the service this morning spoke very movingly about Holocaust Memorial Day, and we lit candles and we "remembered".  I put that in inverted commas, because few of us at the chapel these days are actually old enough to have heard about it at the time, but the rest of us know about it from our school history lessons, from films like Schindler's List, and the book, Schindler's Ark, and from the stories of those we know who are old enough to have known.  Some of the younger members have read the stories through the Anne Frank diaries.

We have a very old friend, who was in the Russian army at the time the camps were liberated, and he was there when one in particular was freed.  He told the FH all about it, in some of their quiet chats together over the years.  The FH has also been to Germany, and to the camps, and told us about it this morning at the chapel.

It is very very important that these events ARE remembered, by those who were there, and by those who have told their stories so that the rest of the world can know, and by knowing, prevent such things happening again, if we can.  We can honour the dead, and give thanks for their lives, their struggles and their faith.  We must learn, all of us, that we are all equal, and that no one has the right to set themselves above anyone else.  God loves every one of us in the same way, and we are all created equal, as Paul reminds us in his letters.