Please Bring Back the Good Old Days!

Memories of the horrible events of 2019 jarred me awake this morning with nightmares of mass shootings, killings, devastating cyclones, wildfires in California, an inferno in Australia....

"ENOUGH!, 'ENOUGH!" I said to myself. "Please bring back the good old days when I was a child...in the 1940s".

But then I remembered that we lived every day in the shadow of a war that killed untold millions of warriors and civilians. In addition, more than six million people, mostly of the Jewish faith, were heartlessly exterminated in the death camps. 

I quickly realized that the good old days were not so good. We haven't fixed all our problems, but on the fourth Thursday of this month, November; we do have much to be thankful for. 

The picture below is the New England Holocaust Memorial near South Station in Boston. I had the honor of being one of the workers to build the massive stainless steel columns, covered in glass with the tattoo numbers of victims etched into the outside walls and quotes from camp survivors engraved on the inside. 

Ryan Iron of Raynham, Mass built it but it was conceived and created by Holocaust survivor Stephen Ross.

At the entrance to the death camps, the Nazis erected signs above the entrance saying 'Arbeit Macht Frei' - "Work Makes Us Free".

I think that now, more than ever, we need to keep the horrific memories of the World War fresh in our minds because 

"For as long as we remember this, we shall stay free."

(C) 2019 Bill Russo 

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