成人快手

A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Rabbi Julia Neuberger

Good morning.

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day, the day the Red Army liberated the death camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Their leaders were horrified. General Vasily Petrenko said: "I, who saw people dying every day, was shocked by the Nazis' indescribable hatred toward the inmates who had turned into living skeletons. I read about the Nazis' treatment of Jews in various leaflets, but there was nothing about the Nazis' treatment of women, children, and old men. It was in Auschwitz that I found out about the fate of the Jews.鈥�

Everyone knows about Auschwitz now, but there were also Belsen, Sobibor, where my great grandmother was murdered, Treblinka, where my great aunts and uncles were murdered, and many more.

And yet there is hope. Some of those liberated that day at Auschwitz survived to tell the tale, despite disease and starvation. Others survived other camps. Some were hidden. Amazing people sheltered Jews, especially children, and saved them. There were heroes and heroines, as well as murderers and butchers. And as I think of family members who were murdered, I also feel immense gratitude to those people who helped others escape to this country, who campaigned for Britain to take more desperate refugees, and who supported them for years.

My refugee mother always believed that, despite the horrors and the genocide, good would one day prevail. So as we remember the victims of the Nazis and those of all other genocides today, and as we protest against all forms of racist hatred, let us also remember the good that some brave people did at that time- and give thanks for their moral courage. And may we learn from that moral courage, and be brave in our turn too.