Sabbatical Talk

Thank you:

The 13 weeks of my sabbatical have provided me with some of

the deepest, challenging experiences of my life, and yet through

all that I have seen and experienced, grim as much of it has

been, this has also been I think one of the most fruitful

experiences of my life. So I want to start tonight by saying a

huge thank you to you all.

Thank you first for your prayers.

I asked before I left for prayers for safety with all my travelling

and I drove 3815 miles without a hitch – I witnessed some scary

road incidents, but I only nearly caused one and God even saved

me then from my foolishness; and the car didn’t miss a beat.

And I was well for the whole duration of the trips – not even

one cold!

I asked for prayers for the weather to be kind. Many of the

places I wanted to see are in remote places where the Nazis had

hidden their camps from prying eyes; camps like Treblinka in

such a barren place that I saw 3 wolves in a river meadow close

by, or like the camp called Natzweiller-Struthof 800 metres

above sea level in the Vosges mountains.

Bad weather would have severely curtailed my chances of

getting to these places. But perhaps there were only 3-4 days

when the temperature was around freezing. I saw snow once,

late one afternoon at Auschwitz, but even that was a brief 1hr

flurry which was cleared by sleet. Otherwise I saw evidence of

past snow with the remnants of snow piles at Treblinka and

Flossenburg, but the weather didn’t interfere with any of my

plans. Indeed I scraped ice of the car windscreen only on 3 or 4

occasions – remember this was Feb-March in Poland.

Your prayers also seemed to expand time – there was always

enough time to spend as long as I needed in a given place.

One person prayed that I would see the things I needed to

through unexpected sightings in the world around me and wow

did the natural world speak to me through the sights I saw. This

is a Fieldfare, a type of thrush, at Majdanek.

The same person prayed for protection over my mind and body

and I did feel protected from being oppressed by the evil I saw

or heard about.

So thank you for all your prayers.

And finally thank you to those who took on extra responsibility

whilst I was away. Within Church thank you to the Church

Wardens, Readers, all who led and preached, particularly Mike,

and to the office staff too – Jo and Brenda – and to anyone else

who had more to do at church because I was away. Thank you.

But to Fi who held the fort at home and continued to do all her

normal jobs plus mine, must go my biggest thanks. Without

your self-sacrifice this wouldn’t be possible.

And finally praise be to the Lord himself – for the experience

was far richer than ever imagined. God did bless me richly and I

hope that in the weeks and months to come that blessing will

be able to shared with you. Tonight is just the start.

So why do this?

In ministry I have faced some huge challenges over the last 10

years, and at times I’ve had to support and walk alongside

people whose life circumstances have been awful. But really

this all culminated in the work I did with a family who lost a son

through a tragic murder. “Where is God in this?” I was asked.

Oh I could give the standard answer of human fallenness, free

will and sin, but how can that help? It feels glib, useless.

In His life Jesus came across the full range of human

experiences, and ultimately He suffered and died on that cross

of Calvary, experiencing the pain of loss and bereavement from

His Father. And it was from that base that my sabbatical started,

with 4 weeks reading and reflection about the crucifixion, the

resurrection, and possible Christian responses to the Holocaust.

I read some amazing books which helped me prepare for my 5

week European trip.

I do feel that I have learnt so much from all I’ve seen and

experienced and I will share some of that tonight and more in

the months to come. But I want to stress this is only where I

have reached to date, and I know my understanding this side of

heaven is only ever going to be partial. I recognise too that my

thoughts may not tally with yours, but all I can do is share

where I’m at. So please bear with me – I really don’t have all the

answers to the question of where is God when evil manifests.

But I hope what I bring helps.

I want to start unpacking my European trip with a few quick

thoughts. It was Alexsander Soltz… who said once “the line

between good and evil does not run between nation states but

right through the middle of every human heart.” And he’s right

isn’t he? I have moments when I am surprised, disappointed

and frustrated by the thoughts that pierce my mind, despite the

fact my life is undoubtedly purer and holier now than when I

came to faith in 1991. So we need when considering the

Holocaust to avoid demonising nations.

The crimes were committed by the Nazis and not the German

nation in its entirety, as there were many amazing Christian

Germans who fought the system like Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer

whose bust this is in the Church on the grounds of the former

CC of Flossenburg where he was executed.

But equally there were Nazi party members who fought against

the evil – of whom Oskar Schindler, whose factory I was blessed

to visit in Krakow was one. So not all Nazis were bad.

So I shall avoid generalities.

I also want to burst a key myth too which I have heard so often

and yet it absolutely untrue. And this is important for reasons I

will explain shortly.

On my second day at Auschwitz I was on a study tour led by a

very knowledgeable lady called Agneiska, whose mannerisms

were just like our own Caroline Gould. You have a Polish

doppelganger. A British man on this tour commented about the

lack of bird song at Auschwitz-Birkenau, how the birds aren’t

there because of the evil perpetrated. Agnieska our guide

smiled, and said “Oh yes – it’s a lovely story the British tell isn’t

it. But it’s not true.

Oh yes they may well not have heard or seen birds there as they

focus on the railway line, or the crematoria or the barracks, but

actually the natural world very quickly reclaimed the vacated

site after WW2 and birdsong is everywhere.”

And I need to tell you she was spot on: I heard so much

birdsong it was untrue. Flocks of Fieldfares in the trees and then

overhead by the crematoria. Here is a pond where thousands of

tonnes of human ash from the crematoria had been tipped

leaving the water a very strange colour – not a very natural

place… But look again – here are 2 mallard ducks swimming.

And then there were lapwings doing their mating routines in the

fields of the barracks, birds of prey circling overhead.

and I came across a huge flock of starlings in one field of ex-

barracks. There’s loads of birdsong and wildlife at Auschwitz-

Birkenau.

The reason I need to expunge that myth is because it

encourages the thought that the evil was so great, that the

place cannot be inhabited again. But that’s nonsense, the

natural world is everywhere in Auschwitz-Birkenau. So

therefore let’s not see that place as beyond redemption – if

Christ took all the evil and sin of the world upon himself on the

cross, then that includes the evil of the Holocaust, even at

Auschwitz.

So what did I do:

In the course of 34 days I visited:

a) 5 extermination camps:

Chelmno, Treblinka, Belzec, Majdanek and finally

Auschwitz.

1,100,000 Jewish people were murdered in Auschwitz, and

nearly 2,000,000 altogether in the other 4 combined, so I

saw 5 sites where over 3million of the 6 million Jewish

people who perished in the holocaust

b) 8 concentration camps:

BB, Neuengamme, Gross-Rosen, Plaszow, Mittelbau-Dora,

Buchenwald, Flossenburg, Natzweiller-Struthof

c) And the sites of 3 former Jewish ghettos:

Lublin, Krakow and Terezin

I wonder how many of those names were new to you? Post-war

different camps had different significances for the Allied

powers. For every camp liberated brought the horrors of

multitudes dying and piles of corpses.

Majdanek in Lublin was the first cc captured by the Russians,

and its horrors made it a focal point for remembrance

particularly for young children in subsequent years.

The Americans captured Buchenwald and the sights they saw on

entering the camp meant that when the 70th anniversary of the

camp liberations came, it was Buchenwald where President

Obama went accompanied by the famous holocaust survivor

from that very camp – Ellie Wiesel.

For the French, Natzweiller-Struthof, the only camp on French

soil has become a place which all schoolchildren in the area visit

with its focus now on resisting evil and nations working

together.

And for the British – it was Bergen-Belsen where Anne Frank

died and whose horrific aftermath will be etched on anyone’s

memory if you’ve seen the films.

And Auschwitz – well it was liberated on 27th January 1945, and

given that it was the camp where systematised slaughter of the

Jewish people reached its nadir, that’s why that date 27th Jan is

now International Holocaust memorial day.

Stories:

I want to tell you a few stories now and as I go on I will begin to

weave in where I believe God fits into this, until at the end I’ll

hope to unpack this.

Let’s start though with a couple of grim tales. I promise I won’t

be too explicit, but I need to bring us to look over the cliff edge

of evil if we are to appreciate the wonder of what Christ can

bring. I have read loads about the Holocaust and I don’t think I

could have been better prepared for my trip, yet there were

moments I was just aghast. And I was glad that was the case –

because on a trip like this you fear becoming emotionally

hardened by what you see. Well far from that, I found the

experiences frequently brought me to tears – not of brokenness

but in a sense I believe entering in part into God’s own sorrow

about what had been.

I had read a great deal about Majdanek Concentration and

Extermination Camp on the outskirts of Lublin. In Holocaust

terms it is believed about 80,000 were murdered there. From

the Nazi’s point of view it was the least effective of the

extermination camps, yet on 3rd November 1943 the biggest

single execution of civilians took place in its grounds. 18,400

Jewish men, women and children were shot dead in pits dug by

the victims. From morning till evening, loud orchestral music

was played through the camp loudspeakers to try and hide the

sounds of shooting. The Nazis called the operation “Erntefest” –

which translates as “Harvest Festival”!

I’d read about this, but to see the ripples in the land in the camp

today, which leave no need for imagination at all, was deeply

shocking. That sense of loss was brought home to me very

poignantly, as right next to this site was both the mausoleum

and the camp crematorium, and whilst I was there several

hundred Israeli Police Officers in Europe visiting Holocaust sites

held a prayer meeting with solemn singing. Deeply moving.

And for a second example, leaving out all the most gruesome

details, I discovered that the gas chamber installed at

Natzweiller-Struthof camp had been put in for a unique

purpose. Not for the mass extermination of prisoners but to aid

“so-called medical experiments.”

It started when a Nazi doctor from Strasbourg University

wanted to test possible antidotes to mustard gas and phosgene

gas, 2 gases used in WW1 which the Nazis were contemplating

using. The gas chamber was set up to enable his experiments on

a number of human guinea pigs (Roma/Sinti and homosexuals

in this case); he could test whether the antidotes worked after

various levels of exposure to the gases – the mustard or

phosgene being released in the gas chamber. Needless to say a

number of the prisoners died and others suffered terrible side

effects. Another doctor wanted a collection of human bodies for

analytical studies, so a further 86 were murdered in these gas

chambers just for that purpose after have been hand picked

based on their body shape. The victims were all Jewish people

deported from Auschwitz, who probably thought therefore they

were going to be safe; but no they died in Natzweiller-Struthof

so someone could further his medical career. Those stories are

2 of many I could tell which makes it ever so important that we

seek to find where God can be found in this carnage.

So before our pudding break, I want to tell you 3 deeply

inspiring stories too. For although evil was manifest in the

Holocaust, there were some remarkable tales of people who

acted heroically.

I want to start briefly with the story of Oskar Schindler, brought

to global attention in Steven Spielberg’s multi-Oscar winning

film “Schindler’s List”. Schindler was a womanising Austrian Nazi

who served in the German military police, who was always after

a fast buck and quick profit. So in 1940 following the invasion of

Poland, he arrived in Krakow and took over a bankrupt

enamelware factory employing firstly local Poles, and then

increasing numbers of Jews from the Krakow ghetto established

in 1941. What happened then defies belief. Schindler witnessing

the cruelty of the Nazis to the Jews close at hand, and coming to

appreciate them for the people they were at his factory, had a

"Road to Damascus" moment and from that moment on worked

tirelessly to provide humane, safe working conditions for his

Jewish employees, employing even those incompetent at their

jobs to save their lives.

When the Krakow ghetto was liquidated in January 1943 he

saved the lives of those who were working for him and he

actually negotiated the setting up of barracks for his Jewish

employees on site rather than in the local Plaszow

Concentration Camp where conditions were atrocious. You see

Schindler, being officially a Nazi official, though in reality by now

only as cover, was on close terms with the Concentration Camp

Commander Amon Goth and as a charmer Schindler was able to

get what he wanted. The story becomes even more remarkable

in that when the Russians closed in on Krakow in summer 1944

and the CC at Plaszow was to be shut, with all the Jews

therefore being sent to Auschwitz and certain death, Schindler

actually relocated his entire factory to modern day Slovakia and

took his whole workforce with him which involved the women

being rescued out of Auschwitz. No other transport into

Auschwitz were ever rescued from it. Needless to say that after

WW2 finished, and 2000 Jewish lives had been saved. Oskar

Schindler, was declared "Righteous among the Nations" by the

Yad Vashem Jerusalem Holocaust centre.

Less well-known, but also linked to this story, is that of a Polish

Pharmacist called Tadeusz Pankiewicz. His Pharmacy called

Apteka Pod Orlem (literally the Pharmacy under the Eagle) was

situated on the corner of a square that got incorporated into

the Jewish ghetto when it was set up in Krakow in 1941.

Pankiewicz was encouraged to find new premises elsewhere but

he was a compassionate man and decided to stay, and Tadeusz

and his three female assistants helped the Jews in the ghetto in

extraordinary ways. They shouldn't even have been allowed to

operate a non-Jewish business in the ghetto but surprisingly the

Nazi's allowed it, and as a result many lives were saved. One

incredible story is about the amount of hair dye the pharmacy

dispensed to make people look younger and therefore

acceptable for work. In the ghetto if you worked you lived, so

hair dye for some was a life saver. Equally he dispensed a drug

called "luminal" to parents of small children - it basically

sedated them so they wouldn't create a fuss during

deportations and attract the Nazis unwanted attention (they

shot noisy children...) - in this way saving more lives.

And then of course there was all the ordinary medicines he

dispensed. Moreover he also kept for safekeeping valuable

Torah scrolls given him. Tadeusz Pankiewicz was awarded by

Yad Vashem (the Jewish Holocaust Memorial Institute in

Jerusalem) the title "Righteous among the nations" after the

war in memory of his extraordinary efforts as a non-Jew to save

the Jewish people.

And one last story before our puddings. In Treblinka, where

nearly 900,000 Jewish people died, I learnt about the incredible

story of Janusz Korczak .

He was a Jewish doctor who worked in Warsaw running an

orphanage for Jewish children called “Dom Sierrot” and such

were his gifts that he also produced radio programmes for

children, taught at summer camps and lectured at universities.

In 1940 the Nazis set up the Warsaw Ghetto and although

Janusz Korczak was offered the chance to leave the ghetto (he

was after all a very useful Jew to the Nazis), he would not

abandon the orphans as he sought to alleviate their plight in the

awful ghetto conditions. Indeed he wrote a diary which has

been since published about the situation. In August 1942 the

time came for the orphanage to be included in a deportation to

Treblinka extermination camp, in whose gas chambers virtually

all the Warsaw deportees perished. Even though Korczak was

offered several chances to be released back into every day life,

even having been warned personally what going to Treblinka

meant, he would not abandon his 200 children. And so he

accompanied them onto the cattle wagons bound for the death

camp and into the gas chambers. A stone in his memory lies

amidst a field of sharp jagged stones surrounding the memorial

at Treblinka.

In each of these three stories we see something of Christ in the

lives of Janus Korczak the doctor, Tadeusz Pankiewicz the

Pharmacist and Oskar Schindler the factory owner. I will explain

more after the puddings. But to close this section, here is an

image of the memorial at Treblinka next to which lies Korczak’s

memorial stone.

The central Treblinka memorial was built on the site of the

former gas chambers and has several distinct features. Firstly

the savage break in the stone down the middle indicates the

abrupt end of life. And secondly, in the stone on top you see

depictions of mangled body parts.

The Holocaust destroyed 6 million Jewish lives – where was God

in all that went on?

Part 2

Ellie Wiesel, the Jewish Holocaust survivor, who was liberated

from Buchenwald Concentration Camp in April 1945, tells the

following story from his time in the camp. It opens a door to us

beginning to comprehend the question “where was God in the

camps?”: [Ellie Wiesel “Night” p75]

The SS men hanged two Jewish men and a youth in front of the

whole camp. The men died quickly but the death throes of the

youth lasted for half an hour. “Where is God? Where is he?”

someone asked behind me.

As the youth still hung in torment in the noose after a long time

I heard the man call again “Where is God now?”

And I heard a voice in myself answer “Where is he? He is here,

he is hanging there on the gallows…”

Jesus suffered death on the cross. But it wasn’t just his death, it

was a death during which he bore the sins of the whole of

humanity for all time. Your sin, my sin; yesterday, today and

tomorrow’s sin.

Jesus death was precisely to save and free us from the sins of

the world. Those we commit and those committed against us.

Reflecting on Ellie Wiesel’s story, I looked in detail again at the

story of Christ’s journey to the cross. As I did so I found

inescapable links to the fate of those condemned to death at

Auschwitz. I want to explore this with you now and my prayer is

that as we see what Jesus underwent in Jerusalem 2000 years

ago, we may see that it closely resembles the experiences of the

condemned Jewish people.

Event in Jesus trial/crucifixion Comparison event for condemned Jew

The appearance of a choice: Jesus or Barabbas

The appearance of a choice on ramp: To the left (death) or right

Fickle crowd stirred by enemy to choose death for Jesus

Doctor selection (Mengele – demonic) to determine life or death

Pilate abdicates responsibility – washes his hands…

Nazis complicit in war crimes tried to do likewise and blame their superiors – we had no choice…

Simon Cyrene carried Jesus’ cross

Sense that God in crucified Christ accompanied these prisoners to their death

Jesus abused – crown of thorns and hit on head with staff

Condemned screamed at and beaten whilst on their way to gas chambers

Jesus stripped by soldiers Condemned had to strip before death

Divided up Jesus clothes and cast lots

Clothes & belongings of condemned were pilfered and given away.

The sentence passed on Jesus was revealed in the notice above his head – his crime

Over the condemned there was no notice but their sentence was the release of a poison chemical.

Jesus crucified between 2 strangers – 2 criminals

Condemned died surrounded by strangers

Darkness descended at Golgotha The lights were turned out in the gas chambers before the Zyklon B added

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” – desolation and rejection

Sense of absolute forsakenness and helplessness

Considering this, I have no doubt not only that Jesus would be

able to totally identify with the suffering of Jewish people in the

Holocaust, but also that as they cried out in their suffering, just

as the Father’s heart was broken by the treatment/crucifixion of

His Son, so the Father’s heart broke for the chosen people –

“the apple of his eye”.

But I believe there is still more in this which we can see, firstly

by looking back at the three amazing stories earlier.

Janusz Korczak accompanied his orphans from the ghetto to the

gas chambers at Treblinka – he would not leave them. I believe

the Jewish people too, though they experienced that sense of

abandonment expressed by Christ, were not abandoned by

God. Just as Elie Wiesel sensed God with the man hanging on

the gallows in Buchenwald, I have come to that belief that God

in Christ also was with the victims of the Holocaust even if they

didn’t sense it, just as Janusz Korczak accompanied his orphans.

Tadeusz Pankiewicz the Pharmacist was a source of

encouragement and crucial medicines for the ghetto inhabitants

giving them what they needed. Although many Jews struggled

with the question of “where is God in this?”, still others found

the strength and comfort they needed for journeys and to face

their deaths. These were usually the religious Jewish people,

because remember the Holocaust was based on racial grounds,

not faith grounds, and so secular and religious Jews were

slaughtered alongside each other. I believe after all my

sabbatical experiences, that God never relinquished His Chosen

People and still has a purpose for the Jewish People. In Mark 13,

Jesus speaks of the signs of the End of the Age – this is usually

linked to both the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and to

Christ’s 2nd Coming; yet as a prophetic word parts of it can apply

at other times too. Let me read Mark 13.14-20:

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I believe in the light of what happened to the Jewish people,

this passage can speak powerfully about the Holocaust, and on

that basis I believe God still has a plan for faithful Jewish people.

As Paul writes in Romans 11.28-29:

28 As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies for your

sake; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on

account of the patriarchs, 29 for God’s gifts and his call are

irrevocable.

So we’ve looked at the Doctor and orphanage director and the

pharmacist, but it’s in the story of Oskar Schindler that we see

the closest parallels to the work of Jesus. Schindler’s actions

saved the lives of all the Jews who worked for him. And similarly

as followers of Christ we know that although we will have an

earthly death, all who bear Christ’s name and work for Him in

this life will find they are eternally saved.

And this all came together for me when I walked around the

huge Memorial that the former East German Government set

up on the hillside near the former Buchenwald Concentration

Camp.

The history of creating the memorial was complex, for with the

onset of the Cold War, the East Germany leaders wanted to

create a memorial which not only spoke of the defeat of the

Nazis, but also the victory of communism. In line with all this

was slowly but surely created a variety of myths, actually plain

lies, so that a cult grew which justified the superiority and

legitimacy of the DDR state. Primary amongst these myths was

that communism had defeated the fascists and any reference to

American liberation was ignored in favour of a doctrine of the

communists usurping the Nazis, and specifically the communists

of East Germany. Needless to say when Germany was reunified

in 1990 a lot of work had to be done at the site of Buchenwald,

but that story is too long to tell, so back to the memorial.

The idea was to create a path from the Buchenwald Camp to a

huge open air monument on the hillside which could be seen

from distance. And the place of this memorial was key - the

Nazis had buried 3000 bodies in natural depressions on the

hillside and so these depressions needed to form part of the

memorial. And so in 1954 the memorial opened, and still stands

on the Ettersburg hillside today.

You enter the memorial by walking through a beautiful arched

gateway down the hillside past a series of 7 stone panels

showing stages in the camps life from establishment to the

imaginary victory of the communist inmates over the Nazis.

The panels are remarkably good quality - the one I've included

shows the work at the quarry - with prisoners pulling a quarry

wagon up the slope being berated by SS guards.

Standout images are the SS officer with the dog (bottom left),

the dead/exhausted inmate (bottom right), and the figures on

the wagon in an imagined victory type pose!!! Although the 7

panels end in camp liberation, by this stage you've reached the

bottom of the hill, and the idea was that the camp's duration

had been a descent into the depths of hell and depravity (even

if the comrades had supposedly won!), and so at the bottom of

the steps, you arrive at the site of the three mass graves - all on

a level and linked by a wide memorial avenue pathway. The

mass grave depressions were landscaped and surrounded by

dramatic stone walls. The mass graves were huge and it was

very sobering to think about these bodies were just dumped in

pits in the woods. The wide avenue which links the 3 mass

graves at the bottom of the hillside is called the "Avenue of

Nations" and consists of 18 stone each bearing the name of a

different country whose citizens died in Buchenwald.

At the end of the avenue the 3rd mass grave lies directly below

the bell tower, so you then ascend a lot of steps back up the

hillside till you reach the central square with the bell tower and

a commemorative figural group showing the victory of the

communists over Fascism! The group is brilliantly sculpted but

the figures from child to old person are all men!!!

No women at all despite the fact there were women in

Buchenwald - albeit not that many - a very strange error I

thought. The bell tower looks just like a lighthouse and is meant

to symbolise the communist beacon of hope and victory - it is

illuminated at night and can be seen many miles away!

I couldn't help reflecting on how the memorial in its conception,

trying to convey a fictional communist struggle and martyrdom

for the rebirth of a new socialist Germany, actually served as a

brilliant metaphor for the Christian message. The elegant gate

at the start of the memorial speaks of the world being good at

creation;

the descent down the hillside past the 7 plaques showing

windows of camp life to the mass graves and avenue of nations,

spoke to me of how humanity has descended and disintegrated

on abandoning God's ways to levels of depravity which only

have one end point:

death and annihilation. Equally the descent and the communist

message of sacrifice could be applied to Christ's willingness to

die and descend to the depths to rescue humanity.

Then the bell tower looked to me like a lighthouse, a beacon of

hope and new life, resurrection and new beginnings, rising as it

did out of the "Avenue of the Nations" remembering the dead.

It appears to reflect the Christian message of Christ's

resurrection bringing new life, restoration and hope to a broken

world.

I set out to visit the memorial as a piece of history, it had played

such a huge part in the life of the DDR, but I came away

reflecting on how those who designed the memorial must have

had the Christian history of salvation in mind when they put it

together. They had dressed the memorial up as a victory for the

communists, but in truth there was not a victory for socialism.

The Nazis were defeated by superior armed forces, but the only

victory over the wickedness of the Fascists and the ultimate

evils of the world is found elsewhere. Reflecting on "God and

evil" I found it an extraordinarily fruitful place for reflection.

And that brings me to a final moment during my trip which

spoke profoundly to me about new life after the Holocaust, and

Christ’s resurrection. In the old Jewish district of Krakow where

the Jewish community thrived before the Holocaust, I visited

many of the old synagogues that had surprisingly survived. On

my last day in Krakow I visited the Remu Synagogue, the

smallest of all. But unlike several of the others it is a synagogue

where prayer and worship has returned. It is exquisite and still

used through the week. The place felt so prayerful and it was

fantastic to witness that though the Nazi's had tried to

exterminate all Jewish culture (and in Krakow alone 63,000

Jewish people died), they hadn't succeeded. From the Jewish

man wearing the Yarmulka (skull cap) at the entrance to the

synagogue itself, the place was alive. Then outside I was in for a

very special treat.

The Jewish cemetery at Remu had suffered destruction at the

hands of the Nazis, but not complete at all, as many of the old

grave stones had lain under the top soil for centuries and were

protected from the evil eyes that wanted to destroy the

heritage. Therefore when these stones were uncovered after

the war, what was left was a 50% intact cemetery, including the

untouched grave of the rabbi who founded the synagogue in

the 16th Century. But walking around something else had

caught my eye. The synagogue was full of Fieldfares, which are

really common in Poland (a type of larger thrush with a blue

head that we only see in winter here when the weather on the

continent is very cold). Well I'd seen flocks of several hundred

fieldfares flying and roosting at Majdanek Extermination Camp

in Lublin, but they were quite skittish and you couldn't get near

them, but these Fieldfares in a city cemetery were much more

used to people. One bird was so tame that I got to within 6 foot

of it and took the attached photo - I doubt I will ever take such

an incredible close up of a wild bird again.

The Fieldfares were after the worms which were easy pickings

in the damp cemetery ground. Their presence again spoke to

me of the fact that although the Nazis had wanted to kill a

whole community, life, exuberant life, precious beautiful life

remains. The Remu Synagogue is a tiny oasis of renewed and

reborn Jewish life and worship in a nation Poland, whose Jewish

population was decimated; yet that rebirth, like Christ’s victory

after the torture of the Cross, speaks powerfully again that

death is not the end.

Questions?