The International Holocaust day marks the Nazi campaign to wipe out the Jewish people and over six million were killed, a staggering number that we can scarcely envisage. The Nazis also initiated deadly campaigns against black people, disabled people, Freemasons, people who were gay and to a lesser but very bloody extent against Poles and Slavs.
The Nazis also targeted the Roma people who maybe lost the highest proportion of their population with maybe 90% of their population killed. Today the Police, Crime and Sentencing Bill is currently going through Parliament. It criminalises their lifestyle by making it illegal to stop on private land and the recent changes made in the Lords have not affected these provisions. In Surrey we still have no official site where travelling people can stop legally as the location(s) of such sites continue to be fiercely debated.
Persecution starts when we start looking at other people as different from ourselves. There was an excellent Woking Debate recently on What is gender? Does it need to affect how we relate to each other? It is available on the internet and can be seen on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xQ8DfJ_-vg. The question was asked if there was true equality between the sexes would gender matter?
To finish with the poem by Martin Niemoller a Protestant pastor who did speak out against Hitler and spent seven years in concentration camps but did survive.
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.
Keith Scott, member of the Quaker faith
Date: Monday 7th February 2022
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