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Standing Together

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Sermon preached  on the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day based on Psalm 27:1-8, Matthew 4:12-23 and 1 Corinthians 1:10-18 and using resources provided by CCJ (Council of Christians and Jews) for their 2020 theme of ‘Standing Together’.

May I speak and may you hear through the Grace of our Lord; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Tomorrow, the 27th January is Holocaust Memorial Day and its theme this year is ‘Standing Together’ in remembrance of victims of the Holocaust, and the liberation of prisoners from Auschwitz some 75 years ago. We are called quite simply to stand alongside the Jewish Community and with those of all faiths and none, in commemorating the Holocaust, which implies action, commitment, and solidarity. Challenging concepts in a world where an agreement about unity is hard to discover in so many ways.

But try we must… I wonder, if like me, you like to read the words of the Psalm as the choir are singing them? The psalms themselves were written as songs, but they contain a great deal of poignant and resounding poetry with many situations in life. Take verse six for example:

Now my head is lifted up
   above my enemies all around me,
and I will offer in his tent
   sacrifices with shouts of joy;
I will sing and make melody to the Lord

Urban legend has it that the great Jewish violinist, Itzhak Perlman, was once performing to a packed theatre on Broadway, when one of his strings unexpectedly snapped with an audible twang. The audience held its breath, expecting the end of the performance or, at the very least, a break whilst a new instrument would be found. But, Perlman didn’t bat an eyelid. He proceeded to do the impossible – to play the rest of the concerto almost flawlessly on three strings. In explaining the extraordinary feat after the performance, he is said to have remarked: ‘sometimes in life, you have to make music with what is left.’

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, picked up this idea of making music with what is left in an address to the CCJ – the Council of Christians and Jews, when he pointed out that “None among us can begin to imagine how survivors must have felt as the Nazi regime eventually crumbled and they finally found their freedom. The sense of hopelessness and betrayal must have been overwhelming. There was not (and could never be) any rule book or prescribed structure for how people should rebuild their lives, having had every element of their humanity savaged.

If one Holocaust survivor had somehow summoned the strength to overcome his or her ordeal and live a happy life, it would have been extraordinary. That so many survivors made it their mission to use their experiences to positively impact the world around them, is nothing short of a miracle. You have to make music with what is left”.

Anita Lasker-Wallfisch – Cellist in the Women’s Orchestra at Auschwitz

The fact that there was a remnant left was also down to the inspirational courage of other individuals, who, despite being faced with multiple political, social, cultural and physical deterrents, found ways in which to offer a lifeline to some of those caught up in the Holocaust. Pushing their differences aside and standing together against tyranny and evil.

In what is also a week of Prayer for Christian Unity, our readings this morning, although not directly, but unsurprisingly, speak to just these issues. In our gospel reading this morning Jesus has returned from the wilderness, with news that John has been taken prisoner, and realising that before he has even uttered a word of the message he was to preach and teach that his persecution had begun, enough that he felt it expedient to leave his home town and go further north, away from the authorities in Jerusalem to live in the north Galilean town of Capernaum.

Matthew also manages to tell us that this will fulfil Isaiah’s prophecy about the ancient land of the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali, both named after sons of Jacob, the Patriarch and founding namesake of Israel, and their mention is particularly poignant because at the time that the gospel was written, these two tribes had been lost to history for more than 750 years. Originally annexed to the Assyrian empire they had been subjugated by Babylon, Persia, the Seleucid empire and finally Rome, but the people of Naphtali and Zebulun were not forgotten.

Likewise, today, by standing together in Jesus’ name, we must be committed to remember other people beloved to God who were lost to history, but who are not forgotten. Remembering 750 years on, not just these 75… action, commitment and solidarity

The urgency of the need to stand together, is also expressed in Jesus’ calling of the first disciples. A matter so important that there was no time to for internal decision-making or hesitation in their response, the point was to rise and follow at once. We too, must turn from indifference and apathy and rise, follow and act, because if we wait for other’s braver than ourselves to speak out then we permit grave injustices to occur.

The image of the first disciples leaving their nets is still appropriate. Imagine if Jesus were looking to put together a group of people today whom he knew would eventually take over his work and deliver his message for people to turn back to God. You can bet that on top of twelve men there would be at least as many women and children, people with disabilities, homosexuals, trans people, Muslims, Jews and those of other faiths. Just as Jesus called his first followers, so today Jesus calls ordinary people – you and me – in faith, to set aside our tasks and rise to ‘stand together’ in action, commitment and solidarity.

Because faith begins when a group of people come together when they all believe something about a divine being. Last week in Church Alive we tried to come up with five statements that could hold true for all of us whoever we are. Apart from the fact that we were all alive and breathing, there were three other statements that felt right, the first that, ‘God is love’, the second that ‘God loves us’ and the third that ‘we are all children of God’. Whatever faith or none you might confess, we believed these to be true, something everyone could agree on.

Even so, our reading from Corinthians, paints a different picture of what was happening in the early church, where divisions were already appearing, so much so that Paul was appealing to them in Jesus’ name that they ‘should be in agreement and that there should be no divisions among you, but that you should be united in the same mind and the same purpose’.

I personally struggle when Christians exclude people because of their gender or sexual identity. I struggle when they espouse theologies that broke no argument and lead to exclusion of those they disagree with. I struggle when people regard people of other faiths as being represented by a small section who advocate violence and hatred. I struggle with these things. Maybe you disagree with me, but I personally don’t think this is what is means to be a Christian.

Disunity among the leaders and nations of the world, stifles a crying need for the kind of outrage demanded against acts of genocide and other injustices, and disunity within the people of God produces dismay among the hopeful, and allows poverty and human distress to take the place of the joy of restoration. Holocaust Memorial Day is a special opportunity to quietly reflect on the dispossession of God’s human family so totally, and there is a challenge to pray that the present dangers we all see in our personal, social and political life may be prevented, so that the evils that have been experienced within our time will not be repeated.

Following Jesus, rightly remembering the Holocaust, overcoming Christian anti-Judaism: these are not one-off actions. The work to which Jesus calls the Church is a long road that demands daily tasks of healing, justice, and hope. In Matthew’s gospel, that work is carried out under the wider promise of God’s ongoing commitment. As Jesus’ disciples did, there will be times when we falter and stumble. But, standing together, we are strong enough for this journey, for action, commitment and solidarity

Returning to the words of the Chief Rabbi, “We live in challenging times. Hate speech and hate crime are on the rise. Respect for difference appears to be declining. Our society is becoming increasingly polarised. So, what should our reaction be? To fight fire with fire? To match the hateful rhetoric with invective of our own? I believe that we should look to the heroes of the Holocaust: both the survivors and the righteous saviours. We should not be intimidated or cowed. If they were able to make music with what was left, surely we can as well.”

The music of Holocaust victims deserves to be heard loudly and clearly and we need to pick up the strain and add our own voices because if we don’t the words of Pastor Martin Niemoller’s poem will echo in the silence:

First they came

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

The Holocaust is now 75 years – a lifetime away, and the time when there will be no more survivors left to share their experiences draws ever closer. So today and every day, let us resolve to remember the past, commit to the present and dare to look to the future with hope as we stand together. Amen

 

 

Day Nine – A Lost and Changing Identity: The Story Of A Most Extraordinary Survivor

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Jakub Weksler Waxzinel at Yad Vashem

Jakub Weksler Waszkinel at Yad Vashem

As the problem of anti-Semitism rears its ugly head once more in British politics, I was moved to visit again the story of an amazing man whom I had the privilege of hearing tell his story at Yad Vashem. Jakub Weksler Waszkinel works there in the archives, but as a baby survived the Holocaust in Poland. This is his story, mainly in his own words.

‘I was born in Poland in 1943. I don’t know the exact date, but it was accepted that I celebrated it on the 25th March. However, my teacher seemed to think it should be the 28th February and asked me to speak to my mother and father. My father said that nobody knows – but how could that be? The fact was I didn’t look anything like my parents, which always made me feel uneasy. I had dark curly hair whereas my parent were Slavic in appearance and I would ask my father “why am I different?” His explanation was that a stork had dropped me down the chimney, they had cleaned me up but my hair remained black. Perplexed, I asked “why the chimney?” His reply was that it was winter and the doors and windows were closed.

I don’t remember anything specific about the war, but we lived near the station at Vilna (Hebrew for Vilnius, Lithuania) and the transports left from there for Poland. What I do remember is feeling very scared, full of fear, at the sound of planes – my mother said I was an anxious child and stuttered as a boy. At age five I encountered my first anti-Semitic event; I was returning home when two drunk men passed me and uttered the words ‘Jewish bastard’. They kept looking back and smiling, making fun of it. It panicked me, and when I got home I told my mother and asked her, ‘What is a Jew?’. She asked me who had called me that and I replied the neighbours. I repeated my question, but she just hugged and cried and said, “Remember, good smart people don’t talk that way and drunk people don’t even love their own children”. Unfortunately, this wasn’t an isolated incident, but mother always helped me calm down.

During bible classes I found out all about the Jews, presented as mostly horrible people because they had killed Christ. The bibles had paintings of stereotypical Jews and I began to be afraid of them. Even so I understood deep down that they had not murdered Jesus Christ. After all Jesus was a Jew and I thought this is your Jew – why mine – because he really loves me. Such a difference between school and home, where there was no mention of Jews.

Yet something still bothered me deep inside. My mother and father loved me very much, it was not just words but a sincere love. This love was demonstrated after I went to a party and heard an accordion being played. I was very excited and went home asking if I could have one, thinking it was a toy. However, we didn’t have any money, we were very poor. I whispered my wish and rubbed my father’s hands, calloused from hard work. Unbelievably they sold their cow to buy an accordion for me.

It was a strong, close relationship and I loved going to church and praying with them. At home I played make belief of being a priest and took a collection in matchsticks, before offering a blessing, ‘God bless you’. But my outward appearance still troubled me, I so desperately wanted to look like my father; and I believed that I did up until the age of ten, as they had shaved my head to prevent lice, but now I had hair again. I still pestered my mother for an explanation, and although in everything else she always told me the truth, I was met by silence and tears.

In exasperation I looked in the mirror and declared, “If I am a Jew see what I will do!” However, despite this assertion I didn’t want to be a Jew who had killed Jesus. Furthermore there were no Jews living around us, so I didn’t know what it was meant to be like – I just wanted to be an ordinary Polish child.

I didn’t encounter any problems at Middle school, I learnt the accordion and even bought a new one; I read poetry and forgot about being a priest. If I was asked what I wanted when I grew up I would answer that I wanted to get married and have children. Then in my last Religious Knowledge lesson the teacher priest asked us again and I heard the words coming out of my mouth, “I am going to be a priest”. This rather alarmed me as I despite going to church I felt I was a non-believer. Still, in the evening I told my parents that I was going to become a priest. My father’s reaction was puzzling. As a very religious man (I had seen him every night on his knees, praying) I thought that this would please him. Instead he asked me what I was going to do about all the young ladies and playing the accordion. He thought it was better that I become a doctor, but I reminded him that I didn’t like blood. Then what about an artist, he suggested, which was confusing as he had previously said the artistic life was bad. Basically do anything else rather than go to the seminary. My response was that, “I can go wherever I want. I can’t make promises to the wind.” So I went to the seminary to start my studies.

In October of that year I received a message that my father wanted to see me. I asked could it wait until the Christmas holidays, but no, he wanted to see me immediately. When he came I could tell he was very sad. After lunch we went to the chapel and he fell on his knees and started crying. I had never seen him like this before. When we came out I asked him why? Surely I wasn’t doing anything bad. A few days later I received a telephone call to say that my father had died.

This was a complete shock, and I felt responsible. At the funeral my mother reassured me that I hadn’t killed him, but that I could choose not to go back to the seminary. I did return and spoke to the Rector, “What shall I do?” He said I was in shock and to come back after a month, when I decided to remain there, “I won’t stop and I will be a good priest”.

It takes six years to become a Catholic Priest with a lot of studying the Bible. I had never had a bible at home and in it I saw the beautiful world of Judaism; the prophets were poetic and the New Testament confirmed that the Jews didn’t murder Jesus, symbiotic of my suffering, suffering of victim not perpetrator. When it came to make my vows as a deacon I needed to present my qualifications to become a priest and there were some doubts as to whether I had been baptised. The Jewish fear came back and I recalled the childhood name-calling. Maybe my parents may have known but they didn’t tell me, it was just rumour and gossip. So I had a conditional baptism and my Godmother, who is still alive wrote me a letter and came in 1966 when I was priested

Still the ugliness continued. My first year in the parish was good until someone reminded me of who I really was. The local train driver asked whether I knew what they were saying about me? Are you a Jew?

Then I went away to study at university – John Paul II was my ethics tutor. Nobody talked about the Holocaust in Poland, and parts of the country were still very anti-Semitic. On All Saints Day in 1968 I went to a cemetery where there was a Tomb of Fallen Soldiers. Nobody really went there as it was gloomy and dark. As I light a candle and was praying, I looked up to sky and noticed the dates 1941-1945 on the soldier’s helmet. I went back to the university to find out the history of those dates; the history of Poland during the war. It was the first time that I heard about the extermination of the Jews. It led me to think, was my mother raped? Maybe my mother isn’t my mother?

In 1975 she came to live with me, but she didn’t want to talk about the war, just said it was a bad time, but I needed to know and I gave my mother a book about the Jews. She started to cry and I asked her quite forcibly, “Am I a Jew?” Her response was, “Do I not love you?” I knew she loved me very much but I realised there was something there. It took three uneasy years before she felt able to tell me the truth.

Jakub Weksler Waxzinel Two Mothers

Jakub’s two mothers – his birth mother, Batia, is on the right and his Polish mother, Emilia, on the left

I know the date and time of my second birth, the 23rd February 1978 at 7pm after dinner. She decided the time had come, that I must know. “You had beautiful parents who loved you very much, but they were Jews. I saved you from death. What their names were I don’t know”.

“What does that mean, that I am a Jew?” I asked. We cried a lot.

“You are important,” she said eventually, “Not your name. You had a very smart mother. I went into the Ghetto and spoke with her, but said I couldn’t take you because as a boy you had been circumcised, . Your birth mother’s response was that she knew I was a believer in Jesus, and he was a Jew, and if I saved her Jewish son, when he grows up he will be a priest!”… By then I had been 12 years a priest. She went on that in 1941 over a period of 3-4 days the Russians had murdered almost the entire Jewish population. The only ones that were left were those who were useful and my father had been a cobbler, a good shoemaker, a profession helpful to the Germans, which is why they were still there in 1943.

What was I to do with this information? I wrote to the Pope, John Paul II, the same man who had taught me at university, and asked for prayer. He responded, ‘Dear brother’, such wonderful words. The next fourteen years were very difficult as I began to find out more about my Jewish heritage. Then in 1992 a local nun came to visit Israel and when she looked at my native town immediately identified the names of my parents and was even able to find a photograph of them. I discovered my father’s name and that I had a brother, Samuel, and I apparently have my mother’s eyes.

Jakub Weksler Waxzinel

The Jewish Catholic Priest

In July of that year I myself came to Israel. I had been in contact with my father’s brother and his family (who were very religious) and had written to them enclosing a picture of me in my collar. However, when I came down the steps of the plane there was no one in sight. Then I spotted my ‘grandfather’ with his cane. He recognised me because he said I walked like my father. Their first words were, “So you’re a priest, eh!” and wanted me to explain about the persecution of the Jews over the last 2000 years. My response was that I was not 2000 years old! How many times have I been baptised? It doesn’t matter. I asked to go with my uncle to the synagogue, after all Jesus went to the synagogue.

After my visit I wrote again to the Pope, I didn’t want any secrets, but I wanted to keep all my names on my identity cards, which wasn’t normal, but I received a letter with all my names and managed to change everything. l am a Polish citizen, but my nationality is Jewish [In Israel the Jewish status of a person is considered a matter of nationality]. I also asked that my Polish ‘parents’ be honoured as Righteous Among the Nations’ as they didn’t give back a Jewish child, “I wasn’t a suitcase to be handed back”. On the 1st December 1995 a plaque was unveiled with their names, and it turned out that the reason his mother was in the Ghetto was that they were thinking of adopting and had heard about a baby and wanted to save him.

Jakub Weksler Waxzinel's Polish Parents in Righteous Among Nations

Piotr and Emilia Waszkinel – Honoured as Righteous Gentiles

In 2009 I came to live here in Israel on a kibbutz in the Jordan valley. It was a religious kibbutz and at the beginning everyone was afraid that I was a missionary, but we grew to love each other and they didn’t want me to leave a  year later when I decided to come to Jerusalem. I lived for a time in a Catholic house but now in a Jewish senior’s home and work here at Yad Vashem.

In 2012 I found my mother’s family and I am now a happy Jew. All I want now is to be a Jew, like Jesus – who wasn’t a priest or a Christian.

Shalom!’

Perhaps it’s good to remember that one’s identity is not always found in our outward expression of faith, but internally, in the heart and mind and soul which God knows better than anyone and loves us all just the same.

Our Lord Jesus Christ said:
The first commandment is this:
‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is the only Lord.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, with all your mind,
and with all your strength.’
The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’
There is no other commandment greater than these.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Summary of the Law from Common Worship

Jakub’s, or Yaakov as he prefers to be called, life was documented by Ronit Kertsner in the 2011 file ‘Torn’. He discovered his real parents were Yaakov and Batia Weksler and that he had been born in Swieciany, a shtetl near Vilna. He also learned that Batia had been an ardent Zionist and that she and her husband had an older son, Samuel. On April 4, 1943, Yaakov, Batia and three-year-old Samuel were put on a transport to Vilna. From there, Batia and Samuel were sent to Sobibor, and Yaakov to Stutthof. They all perished in the camps.

 

Shoah…An Obliteration of Potential

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Shoah - an obliteration of potential

Shoah – an obliteration of potential

A sermon preached on Candlemas, honouring Holocaust Memorial Day 2018, based on Luke 2:22-40

May I speak and may you hear, through the Grace of our Lord, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen

A Jewish family… mother, father and precious new born baby son… entering the temple in Jerusalem, some 33 to 40 days after his birth, to fulfil a rite of passage required under the law of Moses; the purification of his mother with a simple offering, for those without wealth or status, of a pair of turtle doves or young pigeons.

Three people learning what it means to be a family, with little or no inkling of what life lies ahead of them, but filled with dreams and aspirations of what their son may grow up to be. Maybe for Joseph, a son to follow in the family tradition, to become a skilled carpenter working alongside him, and for Mary, a child who will grow up strong and healthy, perhaps achieving far greater things than his parents had by becoming a rabbi or priest.

We have to remember that this was taking place quite some time before three strangers from the East would turn up on their doorstep, with their unusual gifts, and a warning in a dream that would cause the family to flee across the border into Egypt. And yet the season of Epiphany draws to a close today with this story of Simeon revealing the poignant potential Jesus is destined to fulfil.

A potential that was to bring salvation for those who believe in him, both to Jews and Gentiles at the expense of those who would oppose him, , ‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly’. A potential that is offered to each and every one of us, to every child that is born. A potential that is to be nurtured and encouraged whatever shape or form it may take. A potential that can be torn away, stamped on and destroyed.

‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly’
John 10:10

Yesterday was Holocaust Memorial Day, a day set aside from our November Remembrance Day; when we remember those who fought and gave their lives not only in the 1st World War but also in the 2nd World War, where they stood up aside the evil tyranny of the Nazi regime. Holocaust Memorial Day is a special day to remember the six million Jews as well as other victims, who were murdered simply because of their religion, race, disability, or sexual orientation, bringing the total nearer to eleven million lives.

As a dry statistic, eleven million people is probably unimaginable, but imagine that you drove to the outskirts of London and suddenly the roads, houses and buildings were empty, deserted, every single place, right into the centre of the city. Everyone had disappeared, leaving behind most of their possessions, gone without a trace. Not a single living person remaining.

For the Jews living in Nazi occupied countries, these disappearances were happening in every city, town and village. The streets were falling silent, no one rushing about their daily business, no children playing in streets or shouting and laughing in parks and playgrounds. For among those six million almost a quarter of them were children, 1.5 million lives. Children who never got the chance to grow up and fulfil their potential or their dreams for the future.

Those six million people who were not born as victims, but who had their hopes and dreams brutally stripped away because of an ideology that condemned them to death just because they were Jewish.

Some of you will know that late last year I undertook a ten day seminar at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, where they not only educate people about the events and the peoples of the Holocaust or Shoah, as they prefer to call it, but also strive to preserve the memories and stories of the victims. Their photographic archive contains hundreds of photographs of Jewish people; people who smiled, danced, took part in sports and musical events, got married and enjoyed holidays and family occasions; with no awareness of the fate that awaited them; each now frozen in time for posterity, as the camera captured their everyday lives.

Pre-War Jewish Life

There are also photos of beloved children, dressed up and posed in their Sabbath best, no different I doubt to the snapshots we have, brought out years later to embarrass our offspring, except these children would face no future embarrassment.

This recognition of unfulfilled hope is echoed in another part of the site, where the Children’s Memorial has been created by hollowing out an under underground cavern, which has its own symbolism. It is entered by a descent that funnels you into a darkened room. In the gloom the images of several unnamed children stare out from photographs, as the sound of a mournful lament softly plays.

Then further down, feeling your way into the darkness, you enter what appears to be a room filled with stars. The effect is created by just five candles, which are replaced each day, reflected by mirrors to produce an infinity of tiny lights. In this twilight we listened to just a few of the names of some 1800 of the children, their ages and where they were from; a representation of stolen lives. It is very moving and I immediately thought of my own children

But it is the photographs that haunt me because it makes these children more tangible, and despite not knowing their names, they are no longer anonymous. In your service sheet is a slip of paper with some photographs on it, take a look at it now [see below].

Shoah Children Victims

Florika Liebmann, Unknown and Raphael Altmann

On the left is Florika Liebmann. She was born in 1934 in Szeged, Hungary to Bela and Szenka Liebmann. Bela was a Jewish photographer and businessman who ran an optical and photographic supply store, as well as doing photography in local theatres. During World War Two, he was conscripted into the Hungarian labour service. Szenka and Florika were deported, and in April 1945 were killed along with 38 other victims, in the village of Weissenbach by retreating SS soldiers.

On the right is Raphael Altmann. He was born in 1937 in Wilmersdorf, Germany to Kurt and Grietje Altmann. He was the oldest of four children, including his brothers Martijn and Fred. During the German occupation, the family was expelled to Zeist, in the Netherlands, from where they went into hiding in late 1942. When they could no longer stay together, the parents gave their two older children to a children’s house in Zeist. The house had an escape procedure, but in real time things went wrong. The headmistress was arrested with the children and sent to the Westerbork camp. The children were sent from this camp on to Auschwitz, where they perished on 26 March 1944. Kurt and Grietje, however, hid in four different places with their youngest son Fred and managed to survive. Raphael and Martijn never got to meet their sister Sophia, who was born in 1949

And the picture in the middle, what do you see there? A disabled child? A child with Downs Syndrome? Or a child who was lovingly dressed in his smart sailor’s suit, with polished, laced up boots and no doubt one of his daddy’s ties. I couldn’t find a name or a history for this young man, but he is known to have been victim of the Holocaust and he is representative of one of at least 5,000 disabled children who were murdered under the Nazi regime.

The Nazis falsely believed that some human beings were superior to others and they aimed to develop and preserve a pure Aryan master race. To do this they strove to select those they believed to be the most ‘perfect’ human beings and to deliberately remove from society those considered ‘undesirable’, including the disabled.

German midwives and doctors were ordered to report any child known to them who was born deaf or blind, with paralysis or with a neurological disorder such as Down’s Syndrome, and these children were systematically removed from institutions and families, although not without some reluctance on the parents’ part, from whom the final euthanasia was hidden.

Hitler and his regime justified this by endorsing opinions as expressed by Madison Grant, the author of The Passing of the Great Race, who said, “Mistaken regard for what are believed to be divine laws and a sentimental belief in the sanctity of human life, tend to prevent […] the elimination of defective infants … The laws of nature require the obliteration of the unfit, and human life is valuable only when it is of use to the community or race.”

Nazi Propaganda Against the Disabled

Translation: 60,000 Reichsmark is what this person suffering with a hereditary defect costs the People’s community during his lifetime. Fellow citizen that is your money too.

The Nazis took Darwin’s ideas of natural selection, in particular the idea of survival of the fittest in the animal kingdom, and applied them to the human world and society, however, the valuable of human life doesn’t just rely on its usefulness to others, but more importantly its capacity to love and be loved, and God places in each and every one of us an overriding potential for love.

Not just then, but nowadays, there is also a danger that we stifle this potential even before a child is born. A recent warning by the Church of England was that the future existence of people with Down’s Syndrome is ‘under question’ with the introduction of a new Non-Invasive Prenatal blood test to test for the condition, that the Church is concerned will lead to more terminations because of people’s fears and concerns about their ability to raise a disabled child and misconceptions about the condition itself.

I believe there are compelling and justifiable reasons why a pregnancy might be terminated, particularly if it is for the health and mental wellbeing of the woman or of the unborn child, but not for a sense of seeking ‘perfection’. Some woman reportedly, when they were told that the child they were carrying had Down’s Syndrome were presented with this information as ‘bad news’.

Actress and screenwriter, Sally Phillips, whose son Olly has Down’s, recently addressed this in the BBC documentary ‘A World without Down’s Syndrome’ revealed that when he was born, the doctor said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry’, the nurse on duty wept, and nothing positive was expressed. She discovered however, that far from being a tragedy their lives have been transformed by Olly, who is now twelve and attending a mainstream secondary school.

As she says, ‘Having Olly in my life has changed me and my family for the better. He has slightly worse impulse control which means he often says exactly what everyone is thinking but is too shy to say and he is also incredibly caring and gifted emotionally, really focussing on how others are feeling by noticing when people are upset when I don’t.’

And we do well to remember that discriminating against the disabled, disables us and diminishes us. There is no perfect human being, not me or you, nor anyone else apart from the person of Jesus, and no-one should be robbed of their potential for a full and meaningful life.

Simeon, when he looked at the baby that was in his arms, rejoiced that he was being given this opportunity to see for himself the person sent to bring about God’s plan of salvation for all, ‘the light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel’; and we know that Jesus was able to fulfil his potential by making the ultimate sacrifice of dying on the cross. It was part of God’s all-encompassing plan of his will being done on earth, but it was also Jesus’ choice and decision to go through with it, no one else’s.

Definitely ‘good news’, however, this still didn’t negate the sorrow that would be felt by Mary his mother. The sword that would pierce her soul, should also prick our own conscience so that we don’t forget those millions of innocent lives that ended so abruptly and so brutally. Children who never got the chance to grow up and fulfil their potential.

Holocaust Memorial Day is a time to remember the millions of people who were murdered, not just as an anonymous mass, but having looked into the eyes of the people in these photographs realising that they were people, just as we are. We don’t know everyone’s name but we can pause to reflect on their suffering and remember their ‘untold stories’. We can also make a clear promise to speak out against discrimination which judges some lives to be of less value than others today

In that way all may grow strong, be filled with wisdom and know that the favour of God rests on them.

Amen

HMD 2018

 

 

 

Day Two – Introductions

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Yad Vashem – Memorial of names –  ‘I will put my breath into you, and you shall live again, and I will set you upon on your own soil…’ (Ezekiel 37:14)

Morning brings with it new introductions, the first being the cityscape outside of our hotel window, which was in darkness when we arrived yesterday evening. An earlier decision to go for a morning swim in the pool was postponed (due to the towel situation) but breakfast was delicious and plentiful before we boarded the minibus to be taken to Yad Vashem where the seminars are to take place.

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Daylight brings a clearer view

Firstly an introduction to each other, including our host Yiftach Meiri, who is the Lead at Yad Vashem for groups from Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, when we share a little bit about ourselves and why we have chosen to come on this series of seminars. An eclectic mixture of lay leaders, church ministers, priests, ordinands, church educators, cathedral deans and even a bishop, drawn from various church denominations as widespread as Edinburgh, Northern Ireland and deepest darkest Somerset.

Then the real learning begins with our first seminar – An Introduction to Judaism (On One Foot) given by Ophir Yarden. The origins of this unusual expression ‘on one foot’ actually  provides a very simple but effective answer. The story goes that a gentile wishing to convert to Judaism said he would do so only if a rabbi could teach him the entire Torah while he, the prospective candidate, stood on one foot. Most rabbi’s thought this was a ridiculous request, but Hillel, one of the most famous rabbis who lived at the end of the 1st Century BC and who is associated with developing the Mishnah and Talmud, gave this response:

What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour. That is the whole Torah;
the rest is the explanation of this–go and study it!”

Remind you of another famous saying?

 

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The view over one of the valleys at Yad Vashem toward an Ultra Orthodox Jew community where most of the men will spend up to 14 hours a day studying while the women go out to work

But of course there is more to Judaism, some of which is not so simple to explain and it has as many different hues and forms as most religious groups, from liberal Judaism to traditional Judaism; Zionist to Hasidic Judaism (colloquially known as the Men in Black). Still a useful exercise to get us started.

The afternoon brought us an introduction to teaching about the Holocaust and the first thing we learnt is that the preferred term is Shoah a word that appears in the bible several times, meaning ‘destruction’. This is not to deny the other victims of the genocide: the Roma people; homosexuals; the physically and mentally disabled; the Poles and other Slavic peoples, but it makes it more personal to the fate of the majority who were Jewish.

The Shoah as a story of mankind. It was done by humans and suffered by humans

Our lecturer Dr Noa Mkaton, spoke of the problems with telling history; the main concern being that as it was the Nazi’s intention to systematically destroy every single Jew the result would be that there would be no one to tell the story from any other angle other than the perpetrators. It became imperative therefore that ways were found to pass on the stories of not only the Jewish people but individual families histories as well. Hence Yad Vashem became a resource for the names and stories to be gathered together in one place. There were some six million stories to be gathered and work on this still continues today and for the foreseeable future.

But stories can be told not only in words but in pictures as well. Of the many photographs that we see of the holocaust or Shoah they are almost certainly of humiliated, browbeaten, tortured people; either political propaganda or physical evidence of murder and abuse. Yet, there are narratives to be told from photographs taken in happier times that can be more effective in telling what has happened and give us insights into Jewish identities both before, during and after.

Children of the Shoah

A Childhood Portrait

The ‘before’ picture is of a two children, dressed in their best clothes and probably taken by their proud parents to have their portraits done in a studio, creating a physical memento that could no doubt be looked at in later years to smile at the poses and the outfits, but nonetheless a pinpoint of what life was like at that moment. Would you be able to tell that the children were Jewish? Does it matter that you can’t tell?

Who knows if a picture of these children exists at the time of their incarceration in the ghetto or one of the concentration camps – most likely they were not even there long enough to ‘pose’ for a photograph, but perished almost immediately in one of the ‘gas showers’.

For one survivor of the holocaust a picture, such as this, was the only thing he had left, although he could never speak about  had happened, his story is ‘articulated so clearly by the words he wrote on the back of photograph in 1945 after he was ‘liberated’. He simply wrote ‘Paper Children’.

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Yiftach explains the significance of the inscriptions in the Valley of the Communities

The day finished with a visit to ‘The Valley of the Communities’ This is a massive 2.5 acre monument literally dug out of natural bedrock. Over 5000 names of communities are engraved on the stone walls , each name recalling a Jewish community which existed for hundreds of years. Today, in most cases, nothing remains but the name.

 

 

 

 

 

Its symbolic connection to Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones is emphasised with no deliberate planting at ground level, but some growth at the top of the stones to represent new risen life; but its greatest impact is in the space in between – a deliberate void.

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A full and interesting day, laying out the groundwork for our seminars over the coming days – but maybe this evening there should be an introduction to the nightlife of the city as well!