We Cannot Forget

As I drove around doing errands the other day I heard a CBC Radio piece featuring a young woman and her grandmother. The younger family member had visited Yad Vashem, the memorial in Jerusalem to six million Jews whose lives were extinguished by the Nazi regime during WWII. She realized that her grandmother was a survivor and took to heart the observation that hers is the last generation to be able to speak to those who lived through this atrocity.

Upon her return the young woman visited her grandmother whose memory is fading. The grandmother was taken to an extermination camp when she was fourteen, and while she has trouble remembering lunch, she can recall grim aspects of that distant time in her life. I didn't hear any more because of my next errand and I'm not sure I'll find the interview.



This was a reminder that I have visited Yad Vashem on several occasions. The memorial to the children who perished was particularly affecting. I have also spoken with those who survived the camps, even though family members didn't.



As we see images of "Christians" in Charlottesville Virginia strutting around in their pathetic uniforms waving Swastikas we should be sickened. When we see one of the organizers of the rally shedding tears at the prospect of being criminally charged we should not hate -"do not repay evil with evil" Jesus said -- but we should feel no pity. There are no "nice" Nazis, past nor present, because the ideology is antithetical to human decency and the gospel.

Those of us who claim to follow Yeshua the Jew, born to a Jewish mother, educated in a Jewish synagogue in the way of the prophets, must be vigilant. The legacy of those who died, and that of our brave forbearers who fought to end Nazism cannot be forgotten.