Auschwitz and the Human Spirit

Prisoners liberated from Auschwitz under the entrance motto "work sets you free"

The Tattooist of Auschwitz is a bestselling novel about the seemingly impossible flourishing of love amidst the horrors of one of the cruelest places that every existed. It is based on a true story and while some aspects of the novel have been challenged in terms of accuracy about the extermination camp at Auschwitz it is a powerful perspective on the lives of two human beings who found hope in the midst of despair and unimaginable evil.It's good that events which are now recalled directly by fewer and fewer survivors are brought to the fore, lest we forget. 

There ware twenty main extermination camps run by the Nazis during WWII with six million Jews perishing through direct murder and incineration, and from disease and starvation. The camps were also used to kill LGBTQ persons and Roma (once called Gypsies) and the disabled, as well as others designated as undesirable.  

Today marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and this is the tweet posted by the Auschwitz Memorial

	Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum)
2020-01-27, 1:13 AM 75 years ago today over 7,000 prisoners of the German Nazi #Auschwitz camp, including ca. 700 children, were liberated by the soldiers of the Soviet army. 1,689 days of murder, humiliation, suffering, and pain were over. Today we all remember. | #Auschwitz75 #OnThisDay pic.twitter.com/af5m1cs83d

The estimate is that one million people perished at Auschwitz and that the Nazis were marching prisoners away from the camp to murder them almost to the day of liberation. This willingness of humans being to kill children, women and men who had done nothing to harm them based on religion and perceptions of racial affiliation is chilling. These victims were loved and gave love and did not have happy endings to their stories. 

It is important to acknowledge this day, even though the liberation occurred 75 years ago. Just recently there was a rally in the United States where armed participants gave Nazi salutes and carried Nazi and Confederate flags. Before the rally the FBI arrested members of a White Supremacist, Neo-Nazi group, including a Canadian, who were plotting violence at this event. Hatred and evil don't have an expiry date, and it is "ordinary" people who give themselves over to the darkness who perpetrate it. We really must be vigilant and prayerful as we "seek justice and resist evil" (UCC New Creed) wherever it exists. 

God be with those Shoah/Holocaust survivors who will be at Auschwitz today and those remembering in places around the world. 

	Alessandra Dee Crespo (@AlessDeeCrespo)
2020-01-27, 2:48 AM ‘Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.’ - Primo Levi, Holocaust survivor and acclaimed writer #HolocaustMemorialDay #Auschwitz75 pic.twitter.com/XAoErL5Jbk