Tea at Trianon: Remembering Holocaust Victims on Facebook

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, January 25, 2019

Remembering Holocaust Victims on Facebook

From The Jersualem Post:

Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center located in Jerusalem is teaming up with Facebook's Israeli regional department to remember the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.

As part of the initiative, Yad Vashem asks participants to join the "IRemember Wall," which matches a user's name with the name of a Holocaust victim. Yad Vashem's Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names contains brief biographies of victims in an effort to honor their memory and restore their identities. Users can then post the match to their Facebook page. The campaign will last four days, starting Thursday until January 27, which marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

A second phase of the project will be called, "Unto Each Person There is a Story." Using Yad Vashem's database of interviews and testimonies from survivors and family members, Facebook users can share a story online. This part of the project will launch in May, in time for Yom HaShoah, Israel's national Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day. (Read more.)

Susan, TOF said...: I went on pilgrimage this past October with a neighboring Catholic parish, led by its pastor and the pastor of another parish. Our travel agents, guide, and driver are all Catholic, both Latin and Melkite.

One of our group asked why the famous Yad Vashem Museum was not on the itinerary. The guide explained it was because the museum displays a photo of Pope Pius XII on its "Wall of Criminals", accusing him of persecuting Jews and other victims of Nazi terror.

Local Catholic and Vatican officials have protested this for years, with no effect, according to our guide. As a result, our travel agency refused to give the Yad Vashem Museum access to its pilgrims, and our guide and the driver, who were also Melkite Catholics, refused to go there, in loyalty to the Church and to the persecuted Christian minority throughout the Middle East.

Susan, OFS; January 25, 2019 at 10:42:00 AM EST
Unknown said...: My tour was with messianic Jews but wr did not go to the museum either.

I have been to 2 holocaust museums in the US. It is important to remember,,especially as many are now denying it happened.; January 25, 2019 at 8:06:00 PM EST