The Obs, represented by member Sofía Hidalgo, attended last November 9th the memorial of the Night of Broken Glass organised by the Community of Sant’Egidio in Sant Just square in Barcelona.
The reason for the event, celebrated 86 years after the beginning of the mass deportation of Jews to the Nazi death camps, was based on the need not to forget the specific events of that night, and indirectly those that unleashed afterwards, to ensure that it does not happen again. For remembering is a duty to build a better world and inherently allows us to be more human.
The younger generations must learn about the past to prevent such episodes from becoming part of our present, which is why for more than 20 years they have been remembering the 26,000 Jews who were exported and the dozens of victims who died. David Abadias, auxiliary bishop of Barcelona, explained: ‘When darkness enters the heart, relationships with others break down. Hatred breaks relationships, the present and the future. We are called to build, to live together, to see the beauty of the other and to teach it to the new generations. For darkness does not die, but neither does light’. The concentration of memory, ‘There is no future without memory’, was a poignant reminder that it is we who have the power to ensure that the darkness does not eclipse the light.