There is an old gospel song with the line, “I love to tell the story”, repeated frequently in the refrain. Today is the 70th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Some 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, were killed there between 1940 and 1945. About 300 Auschwitz survivors returned there today to mark the occasion when Russian soldiers overtook the camp and freed the people held captive there. This might well be the last such gathering where survivors are still around to remember.
As painful as it is to remember, I think it is important to retell that sad story of terror and death. The Holocaust was a terrible chapter in modern history. The fact the anti-Semitism is on the rise in some countries is a shocking reality.
Some might say we should let the past be the past, it does no good to keep bringing up those horrible experiences. But for the people gathered there, as painful as it is, they stand as witness to the tragedy and say the world must remember their story so that it will never happen again.
