Adventists Attend International Holocaust Remembrance Day in Poland

As every year on January 27, the day of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the infamous Nazi concentration and extermination camp (1940-1945), commemorations of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day took place in Warsaw at the monument to the Heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto.

A delegation of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Poland, represented by Polish Union Conference (PUC) president Jarosław Dzięgielewski and public affairs and religious liberty director Andrzej Siciński, once again took part in the ceremony.

The artistic part and commemorative speeches were followed by prayers by guest leaders of various religious associations, including from Jewish, Catholic, Evangelical, and Orthodox faiths, and the Adventist Church.

Siciński then prayed as follows:

Lord God,

Your simple “Thou shalt not kill” was violated more than a million times at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Before our eyes, history seems to be repeating itself, although not yet in such a tragic way.

Therefore, we ask You, God, to have the courage to say NO when we are urged to treat other people as inferior. To say NO when we are told violence is a necessity.

God, we are sorry for our passivity when we needed to react. We apologize for our obliviousness to these terrible events—that we allow ourselves to be obliterated and no longer disturbed by our new life in the new world; that we are often more concerned with peace than truth.

Thank You, God, for being with us, and, despite our frailties, not leaving us alone. Without You and Your revelation in Your Word, we would have probably already sunk in hatred, one to another, and nation against nation. But You are love and mercy. You are our peace and hope for peace in the world.

That is why we thank You, God, for the peace that has just been established in Israel after months of fighting.

And that is why, God, we also want to ask You to bring other bloody conflicts to an end as soon as possible. Inspire the hearts of the world’s leaders toward this. We believe in Your omnipotence.

We want to ask You to hold close to Your heart all those harmed in these conflicts—all those who have lost loved ones. Our thoughts here are especially with the descendants of those who perished in the Holocaust. This wound is still unhealed.

And to those, Lord, who were deprived of life only because they were different in some way—in other people’s eyes, inferior, unworthy of life—restore, Lord, eternal justice at Your last judgment soon. Their shed blood cries out to You today, O God, from this earth for a just judgment.

Hear our prayer. Amen.

After the prayers, representatives of various offices, institutions, and organizations laid wreaths at the monument.

“How terrible that on the eve of the eightieth anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in Germany one hears calls to stop apologizing for the crimes of previous generations,” Siciński said. And this at a time when the world is once again reviving the idea that to become great, all you have to do is take something away from another. And to take it away, one must first convince the general public to treat others as second-class people. That is why we want to remember these terrible events, but also that every human being, regardless of race, color, or origin, is worthy of respect as a child of God.”

According to Siciński, the best way to pay tribute to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust will be to courageously oppose any ideology that preaches violence against other people as necessary to achieve its goals. When humanity forgets this, terrible tragedies happen in the world, he said.

The original version of this story was posted on the Polish Union Conference news site.