To bear witness.
With apologies for the content, there are times, in the world that surrounds us, when more than others I feel a need to lay a reminder of our past history in front of us all. This is one of those days.
An excerpt from 'A Wounded Landscape - bearing witness to the Holocaust'
Bone fragments from burned and crushed corpses seep through the sandy soil at Kulmhof extermination camp.
Rzuchowski forest, Poland, 2015.
At least 172,000 prisoners were killed in the camp between 1941 and 1944. From summer 1942, bodies were burned in open-air ovens after the smell of decomposition from mass graves became apparent in nearby villages.
Near the end, in their attempts to hide all traces of their acts in this place, the Nazis exhumed and burnt these bodies, and then with machines, built especially for this purpose, crushed them and dumped the ashes in the nearby river Warta.
TO BEAR WITNESS
TO BEAR WITNESS, again and again, to bear witness despite the passing years, despite the fatigue, the returning pain, despite the welling-up of tears, the words which do not come forth. To bear witness for them. Them, my own, the others, those who remained there, those who must never be forgotten, those to whom I promised to stay alive to give voice TO BEAR WITNESS
To bear witness because some clamour that it is not true, that it did not happen, that we are telling lies, worse: some say that we are lying for money!
To bear witness, to overcome the fear that re-awakens, the nightmares rising again, the screams in the night
To bear witness, to understand the numbers on my arm
To bear witness, to say that we were women, men, children like you, like yours, like your parents, your neighbours, those you love or do not love, that we wanted, needed, like you, to laugh, to cry, to smile, to love, learn, work, play, live, TO LIVE
To bear witness, to explain that the executioners were not monsters, but were men and women who committed monstrous acts!
To bear witness, to remember those who risked, and sometimes gave, their lives - The Righteous Among the Nations - to save some of us, to bear witness, to thank them
TO BEAR WITNESS, so that you, who in your hands hold the world to come, never forget, because… “it happened”.
Claire Luchetta Rentchnik
3 February 2020
Thank you for taking your time in reading this today and if you can, please do continue to share these histories amongst your colleagues.
My best wishes,
Marc
