I’ve had a heavy heart this past week. We found out that a really horrible, senseless and tragic thing happened to somebody my husband knew when he served a mission in Florida for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Even though I did not know this person, I feel the grief and pain of the tragedy. My husband and I have been struggling to make sense of things, and many tears have been shed as we realize that we just can’t. There is no sense to be made of some situations.
And then, I read this book.
Sarah’s Key, by Tatiana de Rosnay.
The story is about a little known roundup of Jews in France during World War II when thousands of French Jews were sent to their deaths. And they were sent by the French police, not the Nazis. What’s worse, is the story of the children. 4,000 Jewish children between the ages of 2 and 12 were taken from their homes in Paris with their parents. Once they were in a camp, away from the big city and the eyes of neighbors, the children were violently separated from their mothers. Children and mothers were bludgeoned, beaten and drenched in water in order to make the separation happen. The mothers were then shipped off to Auschwitz, and the children remained in the camp, parentless. After a few days, they too were shipped off to their deaths.
I’ve read so many stories about the Holocaust, but this was the first story I read that was primarily about children. As a mother of a toddler, it was, perhaps, the hardest to read. I sobbed while I read about the confused toddlers who were left behind in this camp, without their mothers or even the ability to communicate what they needed.
These mothers were just like you and me. They made future plans with their husbands. They went on vacations. They sang and danced with their children. They kissed their babies’ noses and cheeks before putting them to bed in warm, safe places, covered with the quilt Grandma made and nestled next to the favorite comforting doll or toy.
I can’t make sense of the brutality. It’s so impossible to understand these acts.
With jolly Christmas going on, I’ve been struglling through this heavy heart to teach my daughter the story of Christ’s birth. It’s a beautiful story. But what is more beautiful is the love of Christ. His gospel saves. It fixes. It heals.
My daughter requested this video almost every day last week. “Wanna watch Baby Jesus,” she would say. So we would cuddle up and watch together. The song is beautiful and I repeatedly found my ears pricking up at the lines, “Truly He taught us to love one another…And in His name, all opression shall cease.”
The knowledge that Christ’s love has the ability to end these horrible things is the only thing that has comforted me while being immersed in stories of the ugliness of humans. The world has a long way to go, but I know that in Jesus’ name, opression will cease. The tragedy that happened to my husband’s friend in Florida, the victims of the Holocaust…there is no way to make sense of these things. But through Jesus, peace and love can and will be found.
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