Saturday, October 2, 2010

A Picture,Tells A Story


An article in the Atlanta paper, jumped off the page. Actually, I was startled. The photo of this precious baby was looking at me. One of the captions read, family photos hold moving message.
An exhibition at Emory University's Visual Arts Gallery, show photographs that Polish Jews took with them to Auschwitz-Birkenau. These are family photos, that were grabbed and hidden from the Nazi's, and found later. The Jewish people would hide their pictures, in their shoes, undergarments, anywhere to keep the Nazi's from taking their memories. Most were destroyed, burned with the bodies of so many. The Nazi's goal was to take this group of people from history. The pictures, if left behind, would prove these people existed, Hitler was having none of that. Somehow, 2,400 were found after the camp was liberated. Yet they were hidden in a warehouse until Ann Weiss found them in 1986. Ann Weiss researched and put names to faces, and later produced a book, called "The Last Album:Eyes from the Ashes of Auschwitz-Birkenau"
This exhibit, "Testaments of the Heart" celebrates these peoples lives. Birthday Parties, weddings, family snapshots, not the usual photographs that we see from the camps.
I will be going to look, and honor these strangers lives. I can not pretend to understand their senseless deaths, but I can call them by name, and remember them.
I place photographs of, my Ward all over places, with his name on the back, and the day he was born and died. Hoping whoever picks it up, will call him by name, and honor that he was alive, and happy.
These millions of people who died at these camps, were loved and mourned, and we will not forget them.
And my Ward, we will not forget you.

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