Up until he died, I would regularly visit my wife's Grandfather in Frankfurt. With his pigeon English and my nonexistent German (I don’t count being able to say "zwei beer bitte" as speaking German), communicating together had its challenges but over the years we found a way of understanding each other.

We would talk for hours about his experiences in Poland before the War, his dramatic escape from the Nazis, his journey to Russia and his life in German refugee camps after the war. An extremely intelligent, charismatic and entertaining man, at 84 years old Joe still had a cheeky sparkle in his eye. His face would light up as he talked of happier times in Poland with his mother, father, siblings, cousins and friends. Although things in Poland at that time were hard for them, they were happy and led normal lives. However that sparkle and life in his eyes would turn to sorrow, when he would recount the day he had to escape from his home town of Rowno.

As a young man Joe worked on the railways and through the transport grapevine, he had been warned by colleagues that the German Army was killing Jews as they rapidly worked their way through Poland.

Joe, a newly married man at the time, went to relay this terrible news to his father in-law, who was also the Rabbi and one of the leaders of the Jewish community in his village. Joe tried to encourage him to mobilise the town’s Jewish population to escape this fate. His father in law, considering himself and the rest of the towns local Jewish population to be Polish citizens, thought they would be protected under the law and could not comprehend the imminent danger and disaster that was swiftly approaching them. His father in-law, not believing that any harm would come to the people of his village, chose instead to put his trust in the capacity he felt humans have for doing good. At the very least he believed that the people of his village, Poland, Europe and the rest of World would not stand idly by whilst something so incomprehensible happened?

Although Joe told the whole village about what he had heard, unfortunately upon the advice of his father in-law, everybody decided to stay.

The next day, both Joe and his wife fled the town and headed for the supposed safety of Russia. Although this was a difficult decision, it proved to be a good choice when two days later upon entering Rowno, German Soldiers shot the entire towns Jewish population, throwing their bodies into mass graves/pits that the victims had been made to dig for themselves. Those who were 'lucky' were killed instantly, others who were not so fortunate, were only seriously wounded and as the story goes, “the ground moved for seven days” until they eventually all died. Men, Women and children, every member of Joes and my wife’s family were killed or left to die there.

I tell you this story because this weekend is the UK's official Holocaust Memorial day, where we reflect on the many aspects of what happened during the Holocaust.

Most of us know how the Nazis systematically attacked different demographic groups such as the disabled, Gypsies and homosexuals along with the more well known racial, political and religious groups, who were all deemed unworthy of life based on their theoretical "racial inferiority".

Today there are many euphemisms for what appears on the surface to be very similar things and whether you call it Holocaust, genocide, ethnic cleansing or tribal warfare, one undeniable fact remains, this is unfortunately still going on today.

The 20th century is shamefully littered with examples of genocide, whether it's the estimated 1.5 million Armenians killed at the beginning of the last century, or Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge in the 70’s, the Kurds killed in Iraq led by Saddam Hussein to the more recent examples of Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda, total disregard for human life is not an isolated incident that is exclusive to the Holocaust in Germany alone.

I wanted to share the following web link with you, that takes you to a picture presentation from the US Holocaust Museum. These are not the usual horrific pictures you see from Nazi death camps. They are just as shocking but in a different way. The narrator of the presentation takes us through a Nazi officers personal photo album that was recently donated to the museum. It gives us a small but valuable insight into how German officers at these camps lived when off duty. She explains more articulately than I ever could, about the banality of evil and reminds us of what man is capable of when he or she succumbs to intolerance, anti-Semitism, racism and hatred. If you have a few minutes it’s worth a look, make sure your speakers are on.


http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/arts/20070919_ALBUM_FEATURE/index.html#