Unusually for me, I have been less hasty in getting my contribution to The 100 Word Challenge for Grown Ups posted this week. We were asked to write 100 words on the prompt: …lest we forget… We could also include a picture.
I was influenced heavily by midlifesinglemum’s contribution
Here is my effort:
Lest we forget
I remember when my wife and I visited Prague. We went to the Jewish museum. There was a small, two-room exhibition commemorating children lost in the concentration camps.
I remember their drawings, their pictures. Simple childish images: of happy times, of freedom and joy; of flowers, sunshine, play. Pictures created with the belief that there was something happier beyond the horror. Symbols of hope amidst despair.
I remember a tiny suitcase, a doll, a teddy bear – bald, his fur eroded by love.
I remember stifling a cry, a wail of grief, a lament for those dear lost children.
Dughall's stuff 
Dughall, your anguish at what you saw leaps off the screen, and the picture you added makes a powerful piece of writing even more emphatic. I’m wiping my eyes and blowing my nose as I type.
Thank you for your comment, Sally-Jayne. I wrote about something I will never forget. I am glad my feelings came through.
Very powerful. Congrats.
So truly powerful. I remember watching a production of I NEVER SAW ANOTHER BUTTERFLY(which incorporates poetry written by children in the camps) as a high school student and wondering how this could have happened to children or to anyone. I also remember walking through the memorial at Hiroshima and "stifling a cry, a wail of grief, a lament for those dear lost children."Thank you for sharing this memory.
Thank you Lisa. I don’t know of the production but will do some looking (if I can bear it).I have been to Japan but didn’t get a chance to visit Hiroshima. Equally harrowing, I imagine.
A very well written piece which oozes raw emotion. I’m sure we would all feel the same way in that place.
Thanks Lynda (and Cathy). I appreciate the comments.Lynda, you’re right. I would defy anyone not to be similarly moved.
Firstly, thank you for the mention – I am flattered and honoured to have inspired you. Sometimes, even though you learned all about it in history, something stikes you and brings it home, making it suddenly more real and shocking. Often it happens when you are in a place where it occurred – It happened to me in Dachau and in the Anne Frank House. Less obvioulsy, in an enormous synagogue in Antwerp built in about 1930 to accommodste 2000 whorshoppers. By 1945 it was no longer necessary to have such a big place. In 1999 when I visited it was practically empty. Also an enormous Jewish cemetary outside a city in the Czech Republic – where today there is no Jewish community. A thousand years of family life wiped out. And of course the children get to you the most… Thank you for writing this piece.
Thank *you* MS.Yes, it was certainly the place that contributed to the impact. However, as a teacher of young children myself, it was also a particularly moving experience. The exhibition highlighted the fact that right to the very last, the adults continued to ‘school’ and educate the children in the camps – as clear a demonstartion of the importance and power of education as one is ever likely to come across.
Haunting and beautiful, Robin
Thanks Robin.
As a parent thinking that this happened to children is almost unbearable. Excellent job of writing about your feelings.
This one made me cry. I hope no one ever forgets.
Thanks Bill and Re.
Dughall, thanks. I need people like you to do these things for me and to share the experience. I know from my own past that I simply can’t bear doing these things myself.
It wasn’t easy, Bill. Thank you for visiting and for your comment.
So moving, so heartwrenching. Past atrocities must never be forgotten. Another powerful piece.
I remember a warm evening two summers ago in Amsterdamwalking into the Anne Frank housepictures of a happy young girl approaching womanhoodthe air heavy with emotion as the crowds walked slowly and silently around the house and out into the sunshine
Powerful stuff, EK. I guess, like me, you’ll never forget either.
Thanks Dughall, you have prompted me to find out about 100 word challenge and create my first ever blog post so I can join in – I’m a bit new to blogging and linking but learning fast!
@scienceteacher21 Thanks! I’m delighted to have provoked you into action!
A well crafted piece written from the heart.
Thanks Alison.
Beautifully expressed Dughall, thanks for sharing this memoryGill
Thank you Gill. I appreciate the comment.
A well crafted post, may the world never forget . . .
Thanks for your comment, Gill.
I have tripped across this meme via Susan Mann’s Blog. I was intrigued and now I’m in awe at so many piecess of expressive writing. And what a topic for emotion … Lest we Forget!God I hope we don’t – and I hope that our children read all of the things that we tell them and try to grasp the importance of why we should not …. after so much fighting and attempts to put things right – have we learned anything? I hope we never forget and learn that we should try not to repeat our mistakes, that we find some humanity and try to put ourselves in the shoes of those who went thorough the terrible atrocities of both World Wars and many of those that are familiar to us.I experienced something similar to this Dughall, when I visited Boston and the Freedom Trail. There is a huge walk through monument of the suffering of the jews in WWII and it has some fabulous pieces of writing about how in stages different classes of people were persecuted and the response was always ‘ but it isn’t happening to me’ – but it did eventually happen to some of those who said this and the question remaining was ‘where will it end – am I next?’Lest we forget!
@HonieBuk Thank you so much for visiting and leaving such an important and considered response.What you say about our children is so true. As well as thinking through my own contribution and visiting those of others, something else I did last week was to watch the film, "The Boy in Striped Pyjamas" (I had previously read the book). I watched the film with my two children: my son (9) and my daughter (12). It was a fabulous, if harrowing experience. There were many, many questions. There were many times that the film was paused and I took the opportunity to explain and discuss issues sensitively with them. These discussions have, unsurprisingly, continued beyond the end of the film.I believe strongly that t is our continued responsibility to ensure these past atrocities are remembered in the hopes of avoiding similar horrors both now and in the future. We can but hope.
Just what I’ve come to expect from you, Dughal! Its truly sad that even though such things have happened in the past and we hope to learn from them, I’m realistic to think that such things will probably happen in the future too, sad as it is. A powerfully compelling piece. Could you tell me where this museum is as one day I’d like to visit prague?
Hi Andy. Thanks. Sadly, I am also realistic enough to know the world may never be entirely free of such hideousness. Continuing to remember and raise awareness can only help though.The children’s exhibition was a small part of an experience that can be had at The Jewish Museum. Another, equally harrowing, experience was the synagogue. The synagogue is a large building and every square inch of walls and ceilings is covered with the names of those lost in the holocaust. You can also visit the old Jewish Cemetery as part of the same visit.Here are some links that may be helpful:http://www.jewishmuseum.cz/http://www.prague-guide.co.uk/articles/jewish-cemetery-in-prague.htmlhttp://www.prague.cz/pinkas-synagogue/
What a sad piece Dughall. It is full of so much that marks the Jewish history I think. Those museums are such treasures to remind us not to forget.
Thank you for your comment, Julia and also for providing a prompt that was head and shoulders above any others I have tried in terms of difficulty!You really made me (and others) think!