27 January, 1945| The Liberation Of Auschwitz

27 January, 1945 | The liberation of Auschwitz

Never shall I forget that smoke. … Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes. Never shall I forget these things, even if I were condemned to live as long as God himself.

Never.

Elie Wiesel, Night

–

All the Dachaus must remain standing. The Dachaus, the Belsens, the Buchenwalds, the Auschwitzes—all of them.  They must remain standing because they are a monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the earth into a graveyard. Into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge, but worst of all, their conscience, and the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance, then we become the gravediggers. Something to dwell on and remember…

Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone, “Deaths-Head Revisited”

When Soviet troops arrived at the Auschwitz concentration camp on the 27th of January, 1945, they found roughly 7,500 living prisoners–most of whom were weak, ill, and starving–and hundreds of corpses. Though the camp remained largely in tact, the retreating S.S. had demolished several buildings, including the gas chambers, in an attempt to hide their crimes. Overall, an estimated 1.1 million people were murdered in Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945, making it the most deadly of all the Nazi concentration and extermination camps. The majority of the victims were Jews.

Auschwitz-Birkenau became a museum in 1947, and the UN appointed January 27th as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.  Seventy years after its liberation, Auschwitz remains the dominant symbol of the Holocaust

I would read the hell out of this story!

Sterek where they are together and happy and in love planning their lives together when, of course, witches come to town. They kidnap the boys, and for evil reasons rewrite their memories to erase Beacon Hills and of course each other from their minds. To top it off Stiles and Derek are both plopped down into random towns with new, separate, lives.

Back in Beacon Hills time goes on and Scott and the pack finally defeat the witches and force them to tell them what they did, but by the time they get to where Derek and Stiles should each be, almost a year has passed. And both are gone.

Asking around confirms that at one point both Stiles and Derek did live in their respective towns, but after a few months, packed up their sad little lives, and left to who knows where. The only thing their neighbors can report is a desire to find ‘a home’.

The pack spends months trying to find the boys, using every lead they find, questionging every pack in the country about scruffy omegas in their territory and calling every sheriff’s department they can with Stiles’ missing persons file. And finally, 3 years after the witches came to Beacon Hills, they find them

Unexpectedly, amazingly, both are together in a small town in Washington. They live together, running a small nursery/community garden. They are happy and somehow, still very much in love.

At first the Pack thinks this means their memories have been restored! But no, they don’t recogize Scott, Lydia or the Sheriff, and the story they tell begins with them meeting just under two years ago.

It was love at “first” sight. Because even when they couldn’t remember who they were, where they came from, or anything about each other, something inside them still remembered their plans. Of someday leaving Beacon Hills and embracing the quiet life together. They looked at their fake new lives and knew it wasn’t what they wanted. Old Sterek or New Sterek, they belonged together, and nothing could keep them apart.

It didn’t surprise anybody that even after Stiles and Derek regain their memories they choose to stay in Washington and the life that they’d built.

Happiest of Birthdays to you, Hazel3017! From me and these two fools we love. 

Being a good person is a choice. Don’t let people fool you into believing that truly good people never have bad thoughts, are never tempted by the easier path, by the low road, never mess up or act out selfishly. Never believe a person can be good without making a conscious effort.

Every single time you do something good, you’ve made a decision to make the world a little brighter.

Goodness is not an inherent trait, it is a choice. Keep making it! I see you, I’m proud of you, and I’m rooting for you!

my name is Sid, and wen i stand, to giv a speech, so very grand, to all the press, who watch lyke hawks, i luk at them. i wear my crocs.

If this old white dude can have this opinion, why can’t others?

Sportscaster Dale Hansen defends student wrestler Mack Beggs and takes a stand against transphobia