Holocaust

I was struck by the crafted words of a journalist reporting on today's commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz:  Those who survived Auschwitz lived through one of the 20th Century's worst acts of hatred and inhumanity.

 

In a world where hype so often hides the truth here is the truth: one of one century's worst.

 

In fact the importance of marking today in our thoughts is not because it was unthinkably bad but because the inhumanity of the Nazis toward the Jews and others is repeatable.  The industrial, secret and targeted scale of it sets it apart, but only in degree.  I witnessed the fears that surround this still in one of my earlier blogs.

Protection for Frankfurt's Synagogue - today

We call it inhumanity because we do not want to think of it as human.  But it is absolutely human.  What other created species sets about its own in such a way?  Certainly none with any moderately developed intelligence.

I like the optimism in the word inhumanity.  I like it but I'm not sure I entirely believe it.  Humanity's best hope lies, I think, in the Man from Heaven.