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Transcription of the speech given by Cardinal
Christoph Schönborn, 8 May 2005, at the remembrance celebration on the
sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of the former concentration camp
Mauthausen. English translation done by
Mrs. Abigail Ryan-Prohaska.
We catch our breath. Here evil was at home for
almost seven years. A piece of hell on earth. This is where people from
the whole of Europe suffered and died: Jews and Christians, Sinti and
Gypsies (Romanies), Jehovah’s Witnesses and homosexuals, the disabled,
and political dissenters. Austrians were among the victims
—
and among the perpetrators. This simultaneous grief and shame
—
immeasurable suffering and unlimited brutality
—
is something we must live with. The concentration camps on our native
soil confront us with the indivisibility of our past. Everything that
happened in this country
—
both the good and the horrific
—
is written down for ever in our history. We must admit to both, if the
future is not to be a repetition of the past.
But Mauthausen holds another terrifying
experience for us, the later generation. The havoc that then raged was
not the evil doing of some iniquitous hordes from far away. Nor of blind
and savage fanatics from another culture, another religion, another
civilisation. No, they were people like us. With wives and children at
home whom they loved. With dreams and longings like us, with their
Christmas tree and their Schiller and Goethe on the bookshelves.
Perpetrators and victims were indistinguishable. In the colour of their
skin. In their facial features. The line of battle between good and evil
cut right through the middle of our people, through families, indeed,
sometimes right through our own hearts. Each of us could have been both:
victim, but also perpetrator. And we can never be sure in the last
resort which side we would have been on then
—
and would be today.
The gospel of St. Matthew has these terrible
words spoken by Jesus: “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
that build the sepulchres of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the
just. And say: If we had been in the days of our fathers we would not
have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets...!” This is
what always forces us to remember: the acknowledgement of our weakness
and our susceptibility to temptation. When the worst comes to the worst,
the steps that separate us from the confusion of feelings, from
temptation and ensnarement are only very small. But there is also the
knowledge of the power of evil
—
and the depths of God-forsakenness. Even tomorrow or the day after, it
can steal upon us in the guise of a new ideology, with new powers of
persuasion. And it is not only since the Holocaust that we human beings
are confronted with the question from the Book of Job: “Where were you,
God?” Where were you when women and children, men young and old were
sent to the death chambers in the murderous bondage of National
Socialism? There is no simple answer to such questions
—
simple enough to adequately convince our human way of thinking.
The accusation of the absence of God is also the
accusation of the absence of man: where was human kindness, where were
the people, when our brothers and sisters had to suffer such atrocities?
We could —
and must —
find an answer at least to this question. And all the more, since the
Christian faith has this message at its very core: God put Himself on
the side of the tortured and the maltreated, this is where He can be
found. This is the Word of the Cross. But this makes the question all
the more insistent: how could all this happen in a country formed by
Christianity, where the Cross is ubiquitous? Even if there were many
among the victims of the terror of National Socialism who suffered and
were murdered for their Christian faith, we have to acknowledge how much
failure, denial and blame have loaded the burden of guilt Christians
must also bear.
Day by day we experience how fragile all human
safeguards can be that protect us against intolerance, injustice, even
naked violence. We experience how hard it is to accept what has happened
and live in the truth, come what may. We recognise how brittle
solidarity is, how quickly we are threatened by old adversaries, or what
we see as hostile to us. And how arduous it is to build stable bridges
of trust and mutual respect and sustain them. So why remember? And why
should places such as this rear up eternally out of the “river of
forgetfulness”
—
like a rock, that cannot be borne away by the rushing river of time? The
18-year-old Ivon Mircov (the winner of the Mauthausen speech
competition) has just related so movingly why her turning towards
history has made her turn more and more to her neighbour. The history of
the last century has proved this right; it is a mighty appeal against
any leveling and covering over of history.
Adolf Hitler himself provided terrible evidence
of this when he brushed away the last doubts about his annihilation
campaign against the Jews and the Slav peoples with these words: “Who
still remembers the Armenians today?” It’s a fact: the Armenian tragedy
of 1915, so long buried by silence and memory suppression, gave the
dictators who followed a precedent showing that the expulsion and
annihilation of entire peoples are possible. In the twentieth century as
well. Mauthausen is the horrific proof. Sixty years have passed since
the liberation. We still feel that the fight against yesterday’s shadows
is never completely won. That the way out of endangerment is still a
long one. It leads
—
far more directly than we think
—
through everyday life.
But what can we hold onto
—
the signs of hope that are so essential
—
in the fight against the shadows of the past?
First of all by listening to our conscience, the
inner voice of God in our hearts, to the eternal law of dignity, indeed,
God’s likeness in each human being which is written into our hearts.
Secondly, in the awareness of our thoughts and
actions. World history doesn’t just take place somewhere else, far away
—
it is not shaped by distant, foreign powers that are anonymous for us.
We are all part
—
and a responsible part
—
of history. Every day. With every deed, with every word, but also with
every omission. The rough draft of the future is being written by us
today.
But the third hold is memory. The remembrance of
our own mistakes, and even more of the faithfulness of God. The God of
Israel, whom we also call Father, will never tire of calling to us
through His prophets: Do not forget My deeds, do not forget My history
with you. These should remain your roots! This implies that our memory
always means a faithfulness to God, too; God, who never forgets; where
nothing is ever lost or forgotten
—
whether tears, whether suffering, or even that still, hidden goodness
that was always there in the midst of horror, and that will always be
there.
The last two pleas of the “Our Father” are: “Lead
us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” May God grant that we
of today never find ourselves in situations in which we fail through
weakness, cowardice and fear, and betray humanity. God grant, that the
evil that came to an end in this place sixty years ago will never
return. Save us from the power of evil. Grant that the whole family of
mankind some time, soon, will be released from his power.
With permission. The original text of the
speech can be found at the site of the Archdiocesis of Vienna:
http://stephanscom.at/edw/reden/0/articles/2005/05/09/a8386
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