Friday, 29 January 2010

Gratitude Friday - The place of memorial

This week, on the 27th January, it was the Giorno della Memoria, a day for remembering the victims of the Holocaust, including survivors, and to honour of those who risked their lives to help those being persecuted.

In the square, near my new apartment, an installation ATMOSFERA by Davide Giglio was erected . At night, sounds and images were projected onto one of the balls of the war.(below right).

Whether it was day or night the installation caught the attention and made people, especially myself, reflect on the past horrors.  Furthermore, as this year marked the 65th year since the Auschwitz survivors were liberated, with fewer remaining survivors to remind us of what they endured, our generation and our children need to know and remember what happened in order to stop this type of atrocity occurring again.

Why am I writing this as my Gratitude Friday blog? Because I am grateful my family & I did not, and do not, have to live in such dreadful circumstances as there were in Nazi Europe. I am thankful that we are not afraid because of the colour of our eyes or size of our shoes, or some other random thing which makes us different. Strange examples? NO. Discrimination is not rational, which is why I used them, discrimination is about hating difference through ignorance. I am pleased we do not have to experience it.

I am thankful that in these times of mass media that people should not be able to ignore events such as the Holocaust again. I am hopeful that in this media age genocide of a people due to race or religion, as happened in Germany, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and is ongoing in Darfur, will stop occurring. Finally, I am grateful that people and nations choose to remember and mark events such as the liberation of Auschwitz, and the victims of the Holocaust.