Orkney marked Holocaust Memorial Day on Tuesday 27 January with an art exhibition and service in St Magnus Cathedral. The artist Robert Downes exhibited 100 portraits of those murdered by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. Outside the cathedral from 12.45 to 1.15pm a few people gathered in a candlelit silent vigil to reflect on what…
Orkney marked Holocaust Memorial Day on Tuesday 27 January with an art exhibition and service in St Magnus Cathedral.
The artist Robert Downes exhibited 100 portraits of those murdered by Nazi Germany and its collaborators.
Outside the cathedral from 12.45 to 1.15pm a few people gathered in a candlelit silent vigil to reflect on what the day meant for them. Images of the vigil by Mike Robertson.
I posted the following in my blog…… https://www.spanglefish.com/berniesblog/blog.asp?blogid=17662
I’ve just read the following on a friend’s Facebook page. I thanked her for posting it and sent her a link to the Holocaust Memorial Day images in St. Magnus Cathedral.
When humanity gets me down, I remind myself that for every negative there are hundreds of positives.
“I’ve just finished reading A Mother’s Promise by Renee Salt – My True Story of Surviving Auschwitz and the Horrors of the Holocaust.
Its factual, harrowing reading, and very very sad and with my total admiration to Renee and also Kate Thompson who assisted her in its writing. Having finally put the book down, and thinking of all I’ve just read, one happening described on Page 113 left me wondering.
Renee is still in Auschwitz living its nightmare of a life, and one day marching to work a guard indicated to her to walk on the outside of the line of 5 as they did. As she passed him, he slipped a green apple into her hand. “Mama and I devoured it in seconds, core pips and all”. This happened several times, she records.
I got to thinking that while 1,000s of Germans serving in the SS were doing the unimaginable daily, there must have been a number of them who found their duties repugnant BUT if they didn’t carry out their orders they would be shot, and their families too. So to pass food to a starving person sometimes exposed another side of this terrible time of human behavior towards others.
“For the first time, a German had treated me like a human being” she writes.
Of the book itself, I recommend a read, in a rollercoaster of emotions and hard as it is, one of immense bravery, faith and endurance. Renee, you are an amazing woman; thank you for sharing.”
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