Day 21: A Destroyed Branch!
The entire root system of Jewish Community life was put to the sword. History will never possess the loss this single picture represents. It is the loss of Youth. It is the loss of Experience! It is the loss of a World which could have served the best interests of Mankind. The little Jewish Boy, furthest right, behind the Jewish Man seated, did he have the secret to a cure for Cancer? Did the Elderly Jew know the makeup of a God we have failed to appreciate? We will Never know! That Branch was totally Destroyed!
1942 August 30th. 50,000 of Lvov’s Jews are murdered in a 3 week period and Rabka’s entire Jewish Community are also murdered at Belzec.
While the scale of the atrocity for the Jews of Lvov is immense, we look to the complete destruction of an entire Community of Rabka and know the thorough nature of that atrocity has been accomplished. When the entire branch of a Family is destroyed there is no future for an entire lineage of that grouping. When it is applied to an entire Community? What future can there be for a lineage of many Families who might then be lost from all History? Because no one is left to recall any of them, how can we Remember them? Even if an entire Family has been destroyed there will be those within a Community who will have known of them? Who will know of the Jews of whole Jewish Communities laid to waste? Who in History will be able to pick over what is left and resurrect something of their having been this way?
“..all men regardless of race or religion deserve respect from individuals and governments.” Bishop Pierre Theas.
A Book a Day, or so of suggested reading!
23. Smolen, Kazimierz Auschwitz Guide Book.
24. Smolen, Kazimierz Auschwitz: 1940-1945.
