Never forget. Never again.

Yesterday was International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Many years ago, I was able to visit the haunted emptiness of a former concentration camp just outside of Munich. Although many of the structures and apparatus of the camp had been removed, there remained a stark and biting terror in the air. The pain absorbed by that land felt like it had altered it somehow. It chilled me to the bone.

Perhaps most frightening is my lingering suspicion that we are not so very far removed from this atrocity. Our capacity, as a species, for hatred and cruelty is not to be underestimated. 

Never forget. Never again.

"In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit." – Anne Frank