Holocaust Memorial Day

Today was the Holocaust Memorial Day Commemoration service at County Hall, Oxford where we paid our respects to those who died during the last war. For those of us who were born after the war, we may find it incomprehensible to believe in man's inhumanity to man. But I do remember that when I was a student at Birmingham during the 60's, we were shown a film about Auchwitz which I shall never forget. We saw real life footage about how everything started from the trains leaving Poland with people full of hope, to the horrendous reality where hope turned to despair and reality dawned. I endured many sleepless nights.

Two years ago, whilst I was on holiday in Jersey, we visited the war tunnels, and again, came face to face with what horror people faced during the war. The evacuation of the Channel Islands meant that some people were sent to concentration camps and never returned.

Today meant that we could spend some time reflecting on the people who lost their lives in what was nothing but sacrifice to a cause which will not be fully understood. Can we learn from this?

To quote from today's reading: 'This remains for me a double image of those years, the unbelievable cruelty and the courage, the callouseness and the compassion - the human capacity for evil, but also the reassurance of human nobility' .

We must never forget.