Without hope memory would be morbid and sterile. That was courage.īut is there hope? Is there hope in memory? There must be. Simply an anonymous prisoner giving a piece of his bread to someone who was hungrier than he or she, a father shielding his child, a mother trying to hold back her tears so her children would not see her pain. And there was hope, human hope, IN the death camp. In a strange way there was courage IN the ghetto. I believe that in those times there was light IN the tunnel. What was courage then? You hear me say occasionally that there must be light at the end of the tunnel. In murdering them, the killers deprived the human family of its future. One of them might have invented a cure for AIDS, or composed a text of such humanity that all the racists would be silenced to shame. Among those children there were future scientists, physicians, scholars, statesmen, writers, poets, philanthropists. We must remember the old men and women whispering ancient prayers, and the children, we must always remember the children, frightened and forlorn, all part of a nocturnal procession walking towards the flames, rising to the highest heavens. this fiery memory remains and we, you and I, you and all of us, now are its very privileged custodians.Ģ002 We must remember, we must remember the times of cruelty and suffering when in the darkest of all places, in man's world, day after day, hour after hour, the killers killed, the victims perished. They visit our Museum, listen to survivors, and they want to learn how to prevent our past from becoming their future. We knew, silence is forbidden, talk, impossible. We believed naturally that one must bear witness. Whoever kills, kills more than his victims. We tell these stories because perhaps we know that not to listen, not to want to know, would lead you to indifference, and indifference is never an answer. (A Piper Lament may be included in Scotland.Read excerpts below from Elie Wiesel's Days of Remembrance addresses.Ģ001 How does one mourn for six million people who died? How many candles does one light? How many prayers does one recite? Do we know how to remember the victims, their solitude, their helplessness? They left us without a trace, and we are their trace. They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:Īge shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.Īt the going down of the sun and in the morning The Act of Remembrance consists of the following: RBL doesn't prescribe what these should be but services should be inclusive of all members of the community. You may assemble whatever readings, music or other elements you wish to accompany the Act of Remembrance in order to make your own ceremony or event relevant to your particular community. The Act of Remembrance is brief and non-religious, making it exceptionally well-suited to personalised commemorations. At the core of these events is the Act of Remembrance. We encourage local and regional communities to produce Remembrance commemorations of their own. Every year, the Royal British Legion supports Remembrance events across the UK.
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