L'archevêque Cranmer: les châles de prière d'Auschwitz

"Pourtant, il y a aujourd'hui à Auschwitz un autre paradoxe et une autre leçon. Il est plein de Juifs vivants. De jeunes Juifs, des Juifs confiants, de beaux jeunes hommes et de belles jeunes filles, bronzés et en bonne santé qui brandissent leur drapeau. Eux aussi sont en pèlerinage et se sont préparés à la visite. Ils représentent le refus d'autoriser que ceux qui les haïssaient avant et ceux qui les haïssent aujourd'hui de triomper. Leur présence démontre la puissance de l'espoir dans tous les lieux de désespoir, la lumière brille dans les ténèbres et les ténèbres n'ont pas vaincu l'espoir."

Ce texte de Frère Ivo a été posté sur l'un des blogs conservateurs les plus influents du Royaume-Uni: Cranmer, nommé en hommage à l'archevêque Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556), l'un des principaux artisans de la Réforme anglaise et archevêque de Cantorbéry. Cranmer est un blog profondément chrétien, pro-Israël (par conviction) et philosémite (également par conviction et non seulement par réflexe contre l'antisémitisme). Nous souhaitons partager avec vous ce texte remarquable Les Châles de Prière d'Auschwitz posté par Sa Grâce.  Une réflexion chrétienne qui touchera tout le monde, même les non-croyants.  Nous pensons tout particulièrement à nos amis chrétiens.

Those who have visited Auschwitz are likely to find their thoughts straying back there on this day of Holocaust remembrance.  

A visit both underwhelms with the very ordinariness of the buildings, yet at the same time the significance overwhelms, as Auschwitz reaffirms its special place in the pit of human history.  A visit needs to be approached like a pilgrimage, with preparation, otherwise there will be a numbing of the experience, a confusion of conflicting emotions which may encompass anger, indignation, bewilderment and the deepest sadness. The reactions of others around you may mirror your own, yet they may not, and that too can be a challenge. Some seem visibly shocked, some deeply affected, some struggle, whilst others present as merely curious and that response can be a challenge as it may offends one’s own interpretation. 

The Holocaust was possible because the humanity of the rejected was stripped away from them as it was, is, and always will be from the unwanted, yesterday, today, and tomorrow, wherever we are in the world. 

Holocaust Memorial Day needs its universal dimension.

There, all humanity was killed in a systematic, planned way; not in anger, but simply because that is what the state said needed to be done, and someone had to do it.

It has to be universal, but it also has to be rooted in places like Auschwitz, which shows how genocide moves beyond the personal killing of Abel by Cain. Here it is shown in all its bureaucratic, banal evil. Hair is cropped and piled here, children’s shoes collected and dumped over there. 


When I visited, I realised that I would need to take a Bible and that I should find a suitable quiet place to read it. I decided on Psalm 88 and Psalm 10. I invite you to read them. You will find there the anguish of those who wore the prayer shawls captured in verse after verse. 

Psalm 88
O LORD God of my salvation,
have cried day and night before thee:
let my prayer come before thee:
incline thine ear unto my cry;
for my soul is full of troubles:
and my life draweth nigh unto the grave.
I am counted with them that go down into the pit:
I am as a man that hath no strength:
free among the dead,
like the slain that lie in the grave,
whom thou rememberest no more:
and they are cut off from thy hand.
Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit,
in darkness, in the deeps.
Thy wrath lieth hard upon me,
and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves.
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