Yesterday the good and upright citizens of Ilford, Essex turned out in their commendable numbers to mark the yearly commemorative tribute to the Holocaust, quite simply the most abhorrent and unforgivable criminal act of genocide the world has ever seen. It was the one most historical event that has now left now innumerable generations cold, aghast, stunned and totally devastated. The tears of heartache, private suffering and grief have been shed every single year since the end of the Second World War. But the pain may never subside, the mental rawness is still there and the lessons it has certainly taught us have been regrettably ignored.
But at Valentines Park yesterday we took our places in the warm marquee specially erected for the occasion, sat reflectively, collected our thoughts and tried to rationalise, understand the vast magnitude of it all, gazing around at the sombreness, the unspeakable tragedy that seemed to surround them. We looked at each other knowingly, barely able to grasp at any kind of emotion that would soften the bitter blow.
There were the officials and dignitaries, the local mayor and mayoress and above all the memory of the loved ones who were not only deprived of their voice and life in the years after the War but were horribly robbed of their dignity. This was not the way it was meant to be and yet that's how fate dictated the course of events. We bowed our heads, chanted our prayers, counted our blessings and gave enormous thanks for the richness of our own lives.
We questioned, analysed, wondered why and then came to the conclusion that those who scorn and mock the Holocaust should go away for a long time and just examine their consciences. For the Holocaust deniers seem to multiply by the day, the week, month and year. We simply cannot face those whose minds have been so pathologically twisted and bent out of shape by those who believed that the whole Holocaust was a tissue of lies, distortions and gross exaggerations that have been so shamefully peddled since the end of hostilities in 1945. But yesterday those naysayers were privately dismissed from our minds, as we hoped they would never darken our corridors again.
How on earth to explain the outrageous individuals who insist that the Holocaust was just a figment of the imagination, that it was something that never actually happened, that it was something they would rather not believe or discuss because there was no proper scientific evidence to prove this. Or that the most evil of all dictatorships could willingly sanction such bloodthirsty barbarism, the gas chambers, the killing fields which provided the ugly setting to those endless rows of concentration camps, the barbed wire of Auschwitz and sickening murder on a gigantic scale.
And yet over 70 years since the end of the Second World War the hollow echoes of gunfire, bombs, explosions and man's inhumanity to man still resonate powerfully throughout the ages. Still we are reminded of the historians who steadfastly refuse to believe that all of the subsequent TV documentaries were just a sham, a fake, totally blown out of proportion and were just made up facts and figures.
The blunt truth is of course entirely different. How dare they, in their ignorance, refuse to believe the piles of dead bodies, the huddled groups of men, women and children led achingly to their death, the crying and sobbing families pleading for help, the frail and gaunt figures who were pushed, shoved and jabbed in the back because Hitler despised them!
Oh for the humiliation, the utter degradation, the vile wickedness of it all. As a grandson of a Holocaust survivor words just fail me. There can be no legal recourse or recompense for the lives wiped out so distressingly and heartrendingly with such merciless intent. We are those whose grandparents witnessed it all, the grandchildren who will always be grateful and respectful, never allowing the sacrifices they made to be obliterated from our minds because we will always love them.
Still though the images continue to haunt us perhaps because they should and will always do so. How can we forget the labour camps, the now ghostly and haunting railway track that transported hundreds and thousands to the gas chambers for the last time? How we can possibly erase from our memories the deafening screams of agony from children and adults alike, the dehumanisation of the Jews, the relentless slaughter, the arrogant shouting and stern commands which emanated constantly from the Nazi stormtroopers, the hysterical rantings of Hitler and the mass loss of life?
Even so for just a morning Valentines Park in Ilford, Essex sat and then stood in silence, contemplating all the while the traumas, the psychological scars, the almost endless senselessness and futility of war. We remembered the ones who would never come back again. But we were there because we had to and we knew in our heart of hearts that they were still there in spirit. It was good to be there and quiet, to be deep in reminiscence, together and united by who we were and why we were there. Lest we ever forget the Holocaust. Never ever.
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