2 ways Christian parents can help their children engage with Holocaust Memorial Day

As the world marks Holocaust Memorial Day, Jenny Sanders encourages parents to talk honestly with their children about history, faith, and forgiveness, using stories like Anne Frank and Corrie ten Boom to spark meaningful conversations

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day. It will be marked as day of remembrance including reflective services as we remember this dark period of European history. Schools may mark the day with special assemblies, readings and workshops. There are over 220,000 survivors still alive today, although the majority of these will pass away over the next decade. Their stories will die with them unless they can be recorded and passed on.

However, it’s now over eighty years since the end of World War 2. Is it too long ago to make a meaningful connection with our children?

History shows us that some stories/events have themes that never grow old

History shows us that some stories/events have themes that never grow old. In light of the old adage that history repeats itself because no one listens the first time, and some of the events unfolding across the world stage that feature in our news feeds, particularly the rise of anti-Semitism, marking the day will provide a natural platform for talking about these issues.

27th January was officially chosen as Holocaust Memorial Day by the United Nations General Assembly in 2005. It’s the date on which the notorious concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland was liberated in 1945 by allied soldiers of the Soviet Red Army. By then over 6 million Jews had been slaughtered in multiple Nazi gas chambers, shot, starved or killed by diseases which spread rapidly in such cramped conditions. The Allies were ……