Dear Editor,

During the time I taught history in high school and college, I was always saddened by what history has called the Holocaust.

Lilly Friedman lost everything—parents, brothers and home—during Hitler’s manic rampage through Europe during World War II. She survived the Auschwitz extermination camp and a forced march before ending her journey through Holocaust hell in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany.

In a biography of Lilly’s life is the phrase, “when the world descended into madness,” made me think of my own life. I think this made me realize America’s plunge into political, moral and social depravity over the past several years.

General Eisenhower did the right thing by ordering residents from the nearby towns to walk by the piles of human remains to witness what they had refused to acknowledge. He also made young soldiers enter the gates and look at what had been done. He reasoned correctly they would return home with confirming photographs of what we must never forget.

In this new year, we must remember history and change what we can or we are doomed to repeat it. Christ said in Rev. 21:5, “Behold I make all things new.” We must remember.

The Rev. Bruce Payton, Pastor, Mt. Moriah Baptist Church, Central Association