Terrible things had and still have their time

Here in Europe, we still live fairly safely, we think. Until before 2022, it had been a while since we had had any war between two nations within Europe. A few years ago, though, there was fighting between the different regions that made up Yugoslavia. There, certain soldiers also acted as animals.

With the fall of communism between 1989 and 1992 in Yugoslavia, the country fell apart de facto (as well as de jure). The disintegration of the country was accompanied by a series of bloody (civil) wars in the 1992-1999 period. During the following decade, seven new countries emerged, of which Kosovo still does not enjoy universal recognition anno 2022.

Execution during the Holocaust

Many never imagined that people could still do something as hideous as the German soldiers had done before and in World War II. Indeed, what had happened there in that decade of last century was at times incomprehensibly horrific. Who could ever have thought that people could do something so heinous to their fellow human beings?

Jewish children are rounded up for deportation

After the war, in the former areas of Yugoslavia, it was clear that there is more than enough reason to keep remembering the Holocaust and to keep calling as a sign of vigilance that this should never or could never happen again.

Jews are arrested during the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, Poland, against the German occupiers. The uprising took place from 19 April 1943 to 16 May 1943, when it was bloodily put down by German soldiers led by SS-Gruppenführer Jürgen Stroop. A prelude to the uprising took place on 18 January 1943 when ghetto residents carried out armed attacks against the Germans.

For the first time in Polish history of the Warsaw Ghetto Riot commemoration campaigns, today 19 April 2023, volunteers hand out paper daffodils on the streets of six Polish cities: Warsaw, Łódź, Kraków, Białystok, Lublin and Wrocław. This year, those volunteers plan to specifically hand out 450,000 paper daffodils. This number symbolises the number of Jews imprisoned in the Warsaw ghetto at the height of overcrowding, in the spring of 1941.

The situation of the civilian population imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Uprising is one of the main issues we want to address in the programme commemorating the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The campaign is dedicated to the citizens – some 50,000 women, men and children who were hidden in attic shelters or underground bunkers during the uprising, and in the rubble after it fell. They remained inaccessible to the German soldiers for weeks and their resistance was as important as the armed struggle of the fighters.

Several activities will take place from 8 am onwards, where several representatives of European member states will also be present.

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Find also to read

1. Holocaust and Bravery Day
2. 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz
3. Warsaw Ghetto Uprising commemorated on 80th anniversary
4. Many members of Jewish community wondering if they are still welcome in Poland