Today I met a survivor of Auschwitz

Dear Everyone,
I had to share something that happened to me today while it is still fresh in my mind and my eyes are still a little damp with tears. It'll go on a bit but bear with me.
Today I went along to an event at a local synagogue as today (Sunday) is Holocaust Memorial Day. The team I work for at Tower Hamlets Council had funded some events for HMD and a friend and LBTH colleague had gone to a film showing connected with HMD earlier in the week at a local arts centre, Rich Mix, and as I couldn't make it I suggested we go to the event this afternoon and grab a beer afterwards. Nelson Street Synagogue does at first glance look a little like a traditional church inside until you notice the Menorah about the place and Hebrew text on the walls. The event was really interesting with speakers not just from the Jewish community but also from representative's of various faith groups from around the Borough. It was extremely moving and those of you that know me well know that I sob at pretty much anything. However towards the end of the programme one of the organisers, Shirley, stood up and announced that we would, of course, be hearing from Vera Forster, a survivor of Auschwitz, but first Shirley was going to read from Vera's book. She was pointing to someone sitting near to her but obscured from my view by a column. I had not been aware that this was part of the programme and as Shirley began to read I could feel this overwhelming blanket of emotion enclose around me as, although many of the speakers had told heart-wrenching stories of tragedy and sadness that, let's face it, we are all aware of, Vera is a woman who was actually there and she lived to tell the tale. It's bizarre how that makes a difference but it does.
When it was her turn to speak Vera got up from her seat and came into (my ) view as she approached the microphone. A tiny elderly woman she launched into her story immediately and in a way that suggested she had told the story before . Her voice was quiet and she has a very strong accent - I guess Hungarian/Austrian due to her story - and although she jumped back and forth in time the entire audience hung on her every word and I have to say the tears were rolling endlessly down my cheeks. She talked about the cattle trucks saying 'I was lucky as I was unconscious for most of that journey', she talked about the fact that around only 10% of those that went in to the camp came out and she talked about many other things - you can imagine. In the passage of her book that was read out she writes about the march at the end of her enslavement that she and the remaining young women were forced to take which went on for four days. They were, she says, like walking skeletons with no idea where they were going or why. Just when the road seemed to defeat them a young woman on a bicycle, a young German woman I think, caught up with them and cycled deftly between them shouting 'Don't give up don't give up. The Russians are coming!' She swerved down a country lane on her bike before the guards could shoot at her and Vera and her fellow prisoners suddenly realised help was on its way. She wrote that the road suddenly seemed easier and they all summoned the strength to walk a little taller. Within a day they were liberated by the Russians. In her talk to us she told us she had tried all her life to remember the face of the young woman who selflessly risked her life to lift their spirits - to keep them alive, but she never had managed it.
It was moving and heart breaking and I feel extremely privileged to have been there today and to have met her although when I did talk to her after the service I couldn't actually say anything as I couldn't think of anything to say plus I was a bit too emotional to speak anyway. ( I know some of you dream of me being unable to speak...)
Why am I telling you this? Do you know I don't really know. Immediately after the event myself and my friend Alison were saying how it put things into perspective, how the things we had been moaning about suddenly didn't seem that important, but even as I write I can feel my usual whinges and moans creeping back in - I guess it's human nature and we all do it and we are all I think are aware of it, BUT I think there are two things I took out of today. Firstly, you all know I am not a religious person at all. but I do wholly and utterly believe in Love and the human spirit. At the same time as man's inhumanity to man can be so utterly horrendous, we all know that it can also be overwhelmingly beautiful and one person reaching out to another, because it is the right thing or a kind thing or just a nice thing to do, is what life is all about. I know we all do this in our own way but I do think we should try and celebrate it a bit more and I am going to try to do it a bit more ? To be the girl on the bicycle in Vera's story or at least try to be maybe?
Secondly one of the really profound things that came out of the whole event was around remembering. I know this sounds a bit OTT coming from me but Vera's story is obviously all the more moving because she was telling it herself but she is not going to be able to do that forever as she is already 86. There is something about ensuring that her story and Vera herself AND all the victims of the Holocaust AND all the victims of the genocides that have come since - Bosnia, Darfur, Cambodia and Rwanda - that their stories and their history is not forgotten. I don't know exactly how I suggest we do that but as these things still take place in the world I guess I'm saying we don't forget and do what we can however small to stop it from happening to others. Again I am not totally sure how but just remembering it maybe is enough?
God I sound like a right old do-gooder don't I? - I am so sorry about that, I just felt compelled to share this with people. I am sure by tomorrow I will be back to my old self; over-sleeping, being late for work, moaning about databases, money, traffic and money again. But I am going to think of Vera every now and again, read her book and pass it on for others to read.
Lets all love a little more - love love and hate hate if you know what I mean
OK now I sound like a hippy so I am going to go to bed.
Vera's book is called A Daughter of Her Century and I have a (signed) copy if anyone would like to borrow it.
For more info about Holocaust Memorial Day you could have a look at http://www.hmd.org.uk/
Thanks for reading this far and to those of you who I know have personal connections with these stories I hope I haven't offended in any way