Friday, January 28, 2005

Never forget

During a lazy session of late night blog surfing, procrastinating (did I mention I'm good at that?) over shifting myself from being sat on the bed to being asleep in the bed, I have been reminded that today is Holocaust memorial day.

The blog in question is showing a stunning photograph from the memorial service that was held in Auschwitz today. Against a background of sympathetic snow, two blurry silhouettes are holding on to each other, as though they need support to keep themselves from falling on the slippery ground. In the immediate foreground of the picture and in sharp focus is a single memorial candle. You can almost see the flame flicker in the wintry breeze.

Looking at the photograph, I was overcome by the juxtaposition of the warm and the cold, between the flame and the snow. It seemed so fitting for a gathering of people remembering something so terrible. This is the warmth of humanity standing in front of the cold tyranny of evil, an image reinforced by the two people supporting each other on the icy ground. The soft focus of the figures stimulates the imagination and makes you regard the pair as holocaust survivors, struggling in the cold now as then.

It's at this point that I should provide a link to the photograph. Or at least mention the name of the blog it's on. But I can't. I was using Blogger's nav bar to skip happily from random blog to random blog, and was several skips away before I realised I wanted to go back. Except I can't navigate back, because each time I do I get Rubber duck adventures, which I like very much when I'm not looking for a picture from a Holocaust memorial service...

I hope my description above does the photograph justice. There's not much else I can really say, except this:

Six million people, including one million children, were murdered during the Holocaust. Let's hope we never forget.

1 comment:

David J. Hirsh said...

Thanks for remembering. Now get off your butt and go do something!

David, Seattle
threetreejournal.blogspot.com 

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