Remembering

Came across this in my journal from this day, ten years ago:

A boy in school today carrying a bag with a Nazi swastika. Odd world. There's some kind of commemoration ceremony taking place at Auschwitz even as I write. We are an odd and sometimes terrible species.

Just watched the news covering this year's ceremony (tied to the liberation of the camp on January 27 1945) involving the now aged survivors of the nightmare. One of the survivors, a lady called Renee Salt, explained that she was there despite the pain it caused her because of the need to remember the reality of what took place, especially in an age when some would deny that reality. Such remembrance seems to me more than just important. It's vital.

If we learn nothing else from history we need to understand how terrible we can be.