Interfaith Journeys
  • Home
  • Interfaith Journeys
  • Stella Reekie

An Ordinary Person

27/1/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
Today is International Holocaust Memorial Day, the day when we remember the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis in their desire to eliminate all Jews from Europe.  The Jews were not the only ones targeted. Other groups were also regarded as racially and socially inferior such as the Roma and Sinti people, black people, people with disabilities, gay men and Jehovah witnesses. They too experienced horrific persecution by the Nazis. But it was the Jews who were targeted for complete genocide. The systematic plans to eradicate them all from the whole of Europe and the calculating way in which these plans were drawn up and the gas chambers constructed is chilling. Chilling because all of this was planned and carried out by ordinary men and women. It's easy   to think that we would not be capable of such things but if one human being can do it, we all can do it – we all have the potential within us to perpetrate evil, to collude with injustice and violence in different subtle ways and to standby and watch it happen to others without interfering or standing up for justice, possibly out of fear for our own lives or a sense of powerlessness. 

The 27th January was chosen as Holocaust Memorial Day as it was that day in 1945 that the Russians liberated Auschwitz – Birkenau, the largest of the Nazi concentration and extermination camps which is not too far from Krakow in Poland. Approximately 1.1 million men, women and children were murdered there, over 90% of them being Jewish. It was only then that the depth and horror of the Nazi atrocities was understood. I cannot imagine what it was like for those liberators and the realisation of what people had been made to endure  must have stayed with them forever. I have been to visit Auschwitz when I was with a group of Christians and Jews visiting Poland to reflect on the absence of Jews in a country that had a strong and thriving Jewish community. The visit to the death camp was chilling and sobering. I had always imagined that a place like Auschwitz would have a sense  of evil around it but in fact it was beyond evil and  the horrors of it hard to believe –but  the proof was there before our very eyes. And these were ordinary people – the ones murdered, the ones carrying out the murders and all the others who made  the functioning of such places possible.

HMD was set up after 46 governments signed a declaration in Stockholm on 27th January 2000. committing those present to preserve the memory of those killed in the holocaust. It’s purpose is that we should never forget the depths of that barbarity in the hope that such things would not happen again. And yet they have. There have been subsequent genocides – Rwanda, Cambodia, Bosnia, Darfur and also the violence that is recognised as ethnic cleansing perpetrated against groups such as the Uyghurs in China and the Rohingya in Myanmar. The world has not learned the lessons of the Holocaust. Rather it would seem that the Holocaust showed just how cruel human beings can be to one another and unleashed that potential into the world – a bit like Pandora’s box.    

The theme of this year’s HMD is Ordinary People. Yes, ordinary people can perpetrate great horrors, ordinary people can stand by and do nothing, but ordinary people can also do extraordinary things in surviving genocides, telling their stories and working for justice. Here in Scotland we have a woman who was not Jewish but who died in Auschwitz and as far as we know is the only Scot recognised as one of the Righteous of the Nations in Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Her name is Jane Haining. She was born in 1897on a farm on the  outskirts of  a small village in Dumfriesshire called Dunscore. She was educated at Dumfries Academy where she was awarded 41 prizes and became Dux of the school in her last year. After school she came to Glasgow, took a business course and worked in the clerical department of J&P Coates in Paisley. Jane was always interested in young people, she was a devoted member of the Church of Scotland and in 1932 responded to an advert for the post of matron in the Girls’ Home at the Scottish Mission to the Jews school in Budapest.  She was responsible for about 35 girl boarders and tried to give them a safe and happy environment while away from home. She loved the work and her charges and feared for those of them who were Jewish in the light of the anti-Jewish laws being passed by Hitler in Germany.  When Germany annexed Austria in 1935 more refugee Jewish children were housed at the mission. The second world war started while Jane was on leave in Scotland but she returned to her post and refused to leave it even after the Nazis invaded Hungary. Shortly after that Jane was arrested and transported to Auschwitz, where she died on17th July 1944.
​
For the past 30 years Hungary has organised a national essay competition to reflect on the impact of the life of Jane Haining. The top three winners come to Scotland each year, visit Dunscore and other places associated with her life and work. Yet she is until recently little known in Scotland, certainly not the way she is known in Hungary. We aim to rectify that and I am working as part of a group organised by the Council of Christians and Jews to organise something similar to that carried out in Hungary. I hope we will be successful and that this ordinary woman who did an extraordinary thing will give us hope and inspiration to also stand up for those who are marginalised and discriminated against.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    I am  a Catholic nun, involved in interfaith relations for many decades.  For me this has been an exciting and sacred journey which I would like to share with others.

    Picture

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013

    RSS Feed

    Categories
    Religious Performances
    ​​

    All

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.