Bearing Witness: Honouring our Ancestors at Auschwitz

January 27th is Holocaust Memorial Day. In honour of this day, the memories it calls forth, and the importance of the painful lessons from our shared human history, may we all take a moment to remember our ancestors and, hopefully, dispel the darkness with a spark of love.

Banyen's owner and founder, Kolin Lymworth, joined the Zen Peacemakers' 18th annual Bearing Witness retreat at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland in November 2013.

Here he shares his experience in loving detail:

Bearing Witness: Honouring our Ancestors in Auschwitz

“Going to Auschwitz on your vacation?”  many of my peeps must be thinking. “Why would you ever want to do that?” “Do you really need to traumatize yourself?” “What’s the point? ” Well, for many of my 64 years I’ve felt oddly familiar with, and kind of “caught in the headlights” of, the Holocaust. I’ve read a lot about it; and it’s stirred my inner stew pretty deeply. Well-known books like The Hare with Amber Eyes evoke echoes of my own family’s story in Vienna...and, I was soon to discover, in Poland and Hungary too. ..."

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Top image: Rainbow over Auschwitz, ruins of Gas Chamber in front.