WASHINGTON (RNS) During a visit to Germany’s Buchenwald Concentration Camp on Friday (June 5), President Obama said it was important to note the faith, and not just the despair, of those who were imprisoned there.
During a tour with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, Obama was told about prisoners who sang of their faith and their will to live despite the “the most unimaginable conditions” at the camp.
“In their hearts they still had faith that evil would not triumph in the end, that while history is unknowable it arches towards progress, and that the world would one day remember them,” Obama said.
“And it is now up to us, the living, in our work, wherever we are, to resist injustice and intolerance and indifference in whatever forms they may take, and ensure that those who were lost here did not go in vain. It is up to us to redeem that faith.”
Obama said he learned that Jews fasted at the camp on Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, and secretly taught children math and history and encouraged them to think about their future.
“It is up to us to bear witness; to ensure that the world continues to note what happened here; to remember all those who survived and all those who perished, and to remember them not just as victims, but also as individuals who hoped and loved and dreamed just like us,” he said.
The visit to the camp, where Wiesel lived and his father died, came on the day after Obama gave a much-anticipated speech in Cairo that sought improved relations with Muslims across the world. The president’s schedule on Friday also included a visit to the Church of Our Lady in Dresden, which was rebuilt after being destroyed by air raids in World War II.