I was trying to make sense of today when I got chatting to a woman from Singapore. Patricia, who is working on a dementia resource, reminded me of the text of Isaiah 49v16 – I will not forget you, see I have written you on the palms of my hands.
I got the opportunity to ride again with yesterday’s group from America. We set out for Yad Vashem, Jerusalem’s Holocaust museum.
New to me was what our Guide called the Hidden Holocaust. This has only begun to emerge these last few decades and it tells the story of the shoah before any camps were built, before the Nazis invaded other countries, – too often shootings and killings had already started. So this means that people in neighbouring countries, especially to the East of Germany, locals, were murdering Jews before the Death Camps.
She spoke about how Hitler lost the war because he was too focussed sending resources to kill the Jews than on D-Day etc. It is hard to face the horror of it all.
Apparently there were 44,000 work camps in Germany of varying sizes, which adds to the awkwardness of how locals and for that matter later even distant christian gentiles, what they knew and how their small part contributed to this murder of 6m.
The lie was effective. Photos of happy Jews getting off trains unaware that within 90 minutes their ashes would have been washed away in the river.
Outside is a stone scripture: I will put my breath in to you and you shall live again and I will set you upon your own soil. (Ez 37.14)
Our guide points to the importance of remembering, of speaking out where we see wrong and gave as a poor example the recent Football World Cup. How, to begin with, there was much protest and challenging of Qatar and whether to wear a pro-gay armband or to take the knee and by the end that had been forgotten.
Back on the Bus in silence.
45 mins drive to Hebron and up to the tombs of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs. Here be Abraham, Sarah, (Isaac is on the Mosque side of this site so not available to us – presumbly so is Rebecca), Jacob and Leah (Rachel’s tomb is in Bethlehem).
This is the Oaks of Mamre. Here is surely where Abraham received the covenant promise of God, twice, Gen 15-17. For me this is quite a Wow moment.
Trying to pull together my day perhaps Isa 49 is for me. Its about not forgetting and remembering that God doesnt forget – His people, His promises, nor you nor me.
(Photo is of me outside the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron)