Speaking at the main morning service on Remembrance Sunday at the priory Church Fr Tom Bates Sub Prior reminded us that “Remembrance: re-membering the events that happened and counting the terrible cost that was paid is what it is truly about, because if we have learnt nothing from the past then it has all been in vain. “
He said:
An 89-year-old Holocaust survivor has been assigned police guards for protection after receiving hundreds of threats.’ reported the BBC. ‘Liliana Segre, who was sent to the notorious Auschwitz death camp was subjected to a barrage of abuse and anti-Semitic hatred.’
It would be easy for us to presuppose that this piece of news was from a bygone age. Perhaps the period following the second world war. But it wasn’t. This was a news story run by the BBC, not forty or fifty years ago following on the coat tails of the Holocaust, but on their news app this week.
And what prompted this tirade of abuse? Mrs Segre called for the Italian parliament, where she is a life senator, to establish a committee to combat hatred: An extraordinary commission in Italy to combat all forms of racism, anti-Semitism, incitement to hatred and violence on ethnic and religious grounds. In short, a commission to stand up for what is fair, ethical and good and to seek to make a 21st Century European country a better and safer place for all people to live. It was this aim that made her the target of 200 hate messages per day. Not in the past, but now, in the world in which we live.
The racism that led to the Holocaust has roots stretching far back in time. It is about ethnic cleansing, greed, and fear. It’s very easy for us to look at some of the atrocities which have been committed in conflict and in times of war and say ‘how could something like THAT ever happen?’ or ‘how did people allow that to happen?’ One of the lessons that the Holocaust teaches us is never to get used to an injustice. It was the Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller who wrote:
‘First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.’
It is a warning and wake up call to all of us never to walk on by when we see injustice in life.
I’ve recently finished an excellent book by Holocaust survivor Heidi Fried in which she writes ‘An injustice is like a grain of sand in your hand; on its own , its weight may seem insignificant, but injustices have a tendency to multiply, they soon become so heavy that you can no longer bear them.’
It’s easy to see Remembrance as being about nostalgia. To look at all the uniforms we see on the Festival of Remembrance and feel sentimental. To think of Spitfires and taking pride in our national identity. To think of a time when boundaries and enemies were more obvious: an age before cyber terrorism and modern hate crimes. But to view the purpose of this weekend as purely nostalgia is to have completely missed the point.
Remembrance: re-membering the events that happened and counting the terrible cost that was paid is what it is truly about, because if we have learnt nothing from the past then it has all been in vain. Through remembrance we are standing on the shoulders of those who have gone before us and paid the price for the freedom we enjoy and the fair and ethical society we want to live in, in which nobody, regardless of their background or ability is discriminated against or diminished.
Writing specifically about the Holocaust Fried writes ‘I finally realised that I had survived so that someone could tell what happened…if no one tells the story of the Holocaust it will be forgotten, and what is forgotten may easily be repeated.’
Archbishop Desmond Tutu fought for justice for black people in apartheid South Africa, and after Apartheid he chaired the Peace and Reconciliation Commission to build a future for his country. There is a Zulu term ‘Ubuntu’ which is a sort of word for humanity. It means ‘I am made who I am, by you being who you are’. If you are homeless, if you are hungry, if you are degraded and suffering then I am diminished as a person, because who you are is a part of who I am. Suffering and hatred in our society makes us less than the people we are created to be because no man is an island: we are all bound up with one another. This is certainly something that Jesus saw and modelled in his ministry as he brought healing, wholeness and peace to those around him.
You and I are diminished by the story of Liliana Segre in the news. That such a thing can happen in our society is very frightening indeed and a cause for great shame. We are made less than the people we were created to be by the hatred and intolerance in our society. When we display racism, hatred and prejudice we diminish not only others, but ourselves and those around us, and the society we belong to which has given birth to that hatred.
Remembering is about showing we have learnt where hatred and intolerance got us in the past, and the lives it cost us, so that we never ever have to pay that cost again. Remembering is important for all who have a vital role to play in shaping the future and deciding what the society of tomorrow will be like. Even if we feel powerless there are simple things we can do like using our democratic right to vote in the election next month. We can ensure that apathy and frustration with the current political situation doesn’t allow hatred in by the back door, and have our say in what the society of tomorrow will look like. Will it be a society that learns from its mistakes, or one that keeps making them again and again? Will it be a place to live where people speak out about injustice and stand up for those who are made less than God intends them to be? Will it be a Society that remembers with honour, or forgets at its peril?
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St Mary's Priory Church, Abergavenny 