Auschwitz

On this day sixty-six years ago, the Soviet army liberated the concentration camp at Auschwitz in Poland, and since that time, the very name of the place has become a part of our lexicon as a synonym for evil, human suffering, and for the depths of mankind's darkest hours.

Some say that nobody survived the Holocaust, that the survivors were all broken shells of human beings, never quite whole again. Fiction writers, including myself, have used this idea; with me it was as the demoness Lilith conversed with a main character, telling him that no demon could have ever dreamed up the suffering mankind visited upon itself at Auschwitz. It was in this place, and others like it that we saw people who had looked into the abyss and had become the very monsters that we use to scare our children into behaving at night. Be good or the boogeyman will get you...be good, because the boogeyman isn't real, but far worse things are.

Fortunately for us, we do not need to suffer alone. There is hope. That is the thing that is so often lost when we discuss places like Auschwitz...hope. We live in the hope of rising again through the saving Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We live in the hope of His love. We live in the hope of His sacrifice. We live in the hope and saving grace of His Eucharistic Body. So remember, hope, pray, and love.