On the 7th of April, an event took place that is one in a long line of such events since the end of WWII. The “March of Remembrance” is a time to remember and a time of restoration and forgiveness for those whose lives have been marked or touched by the horrors of the concentration camps around Europe.

On the 7^th of April, an event took place that is one in a long line of such events since the end of WWII. The “March of Remembrance” is a time to remember and a time of restoration and forgiveness for those whose lives have been marked or touched by the horrors of the concentration camps around Europe. 

Mauthausen, Austria is home to the beginning of the “camps” in Austria. It is not unlike Auschwitz and Dachau. It was an extermination camp – forced labor, experimentation, execution, suicide, atrocities, starvation, all sorts of brutality, deprivation, cold, disease…..

More than a thousand gathered at the Mauthausen site where the 5-mile trek would begin. People from around the world were present. As a point of remembrance, those gathered followed the trail that the prisoners had taken, descending the 189 steps into the granite quarry to the now-grassy floor. These are the same steep steps up which prisoners were forced to carry 40-pound stones, causing so many to die in the effort.

And then there was a pause…a man spoke.  Many couldn’t see him because of the crowd, but they could hear him. He explained that his purpose in coming that day was to repent as the grandson of two Nazi officers, as the son of a racist family and as one who himself had harbored hatred toward Jews…until he met Jesus.  Broken, weeping and kneeling before the crowd, he recounted how those who were killed had been forced to kneel before their executioners. And now he was kneeling before people who offer life…asking forgiveness. What a powerful moment!