I believe that my children are special. Like any parent I believe that my children are funny, clever and sincere. I believe they have good hearts. When one of them is upset, they are comforted by the other, they are always delighted to see each other at the end of the school day and have developed a relationship with one another that is impenetrable. When I say good night to them at the end of the day I congratulate myself on having two happy, healthy children and often wonder just how it happened?
The second thing that dumbfounds constantly about being a parent is how different two children can be. Oliver my eldest is quiet, imaginative and already a worrier. He is a compassionate boy and is often upset by the actions of others. He is slight in frame and often weary about trying new things. He seeks reassurance about most things constantly asking if the water is too hot, too deep etc before getting into the bath. Everything about Oliver is contained right down to the fact he wraps his duvet around him at night and stays cocooned in there until morning.
Sammy, on the hand is a different kettle of fish. We often joke that Oliver was so easy that we thought this parenting lark was a doddle so decided to have another so God responded; “more fool you” and gave us Sam! Sammy is flamboyant, fearless and fiercely independent. He wants to do everything with a little support as possible and sees no reason why he can’t do everything that Oliver does. He already walks with a confident swagger at the age of three. Oliver and Sammy are different even down to the way they sleep. Whereas Oliver is cocooned, Sammy’s duvet is off within thirty seconds of falling asleep and he moves just as much during the night as he does during the day. They are two kids who are amazing and we are constantly learning from them about how the world is actually quite a simple place to live in and it’s only the adults that make it complicated.
January is always a melancholy month. Obviously the fact that it is January doesn’t help. With no holiday in the near future, dark morning’s, dark evenings and generally grey day’s there doesn’t seem much to be joyful about. However, I am also reminded that this week is Holocaust Memorial Day, a day when we remember victims of genocide, people who have been killed because of who they were rather than anything they’d done. The date for HMD is January 27th and this day marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, sixty-seven years ago. Auschwitz is the place that represents the true human degradation of the holocaust, a factory of death where people were killed because of their religion, political beliefs, ethnic origins or sexuality. Whilst it was not the only extermination camp in existence during the Holocaust it was the largest and most efficient. Its liberation by the Red Army in 1945 showed the world what humans beings can do to one another.
One million children were killed during the Holocaust and since then children have been the victims of genocide in Cambodia, the Balkans, Rwanda and Darfur. Just like we read in synagogue two weeks ago Pharaoh’s declaration that all firstborn Hebrew males should be killed; the Nazi’s prioritised the murder of Jewish and Gypsy children. Both regimes did this because they wanted to ensure that their enemies’ children did not grow up. Both regimes wanted their own people to reign supreme. Neither regime cared about the individual identities of their victims. To them the sons of Hebrew slaves, the children of Jews and Gypsies all represented a future threat. Pharaoh and Hitler might have lived thousands of years apart but they were fearful of a minority and sought to overcome it through slavery, murder and exploitation.
I don’t know what my children will be when they’re older but after a third year of running Holocaust Memorial Day workshops at FRS that highlight the story of Irena Sendler I know that their happiness and safety is key to their future. The workshops remind me that every victim of genocide was a different person with a family, different likes and dislikes, different hopes and dreams and even different ways of sleeping. I know that if my two have strength of character and strength of their convictions then I will be proud of them. I know that if they grow up in a world that continues to remember the dangers of prejudice and hate, then they will turn out alright in the end. Although they may be completely different, my boys do represent the future and I hope that they will fight for their cause (albeit in different ways) to do what they think is right... maybe that can be a positive legacy of the Holocaust.
