Remembering

I made a promise to a Holocast survivor a few years ago.

After being rescued from a Nazi concentration camp, he came to Canada and tried to forget the things he had seen. He sometimes gives talks about the war and his experiences because he wants others to remember how fortunate they are. I went to one of his talks, which he turned into a question and answer period, and cried the whole way through.

He talked about seeing a soldier grabbing a baby away from it's parents and throwing it on the ground, smashing it's head in. He watched as Nazi's used steel wool pads to scrape his best friend's skin off. He managed to stay alive because the Nazi's needed people to carry bodies off to be buried.

I saw him in the hall after he had finished speaking. He was frail, his eyes were red and he gave me a hug that spoke of his misery. He made me promise to remember, to care and to be his voice when he is gone.