I cannot imagine how it must feel to be a child during a war. The constant fear of death, torture, abduction, or even worse, unknown horrors made up by a child's imagination. And as with any war, the weakest suffer the most. While the strongest, the ones that make all the decisions, and benefit from the horrors they inflict are usually safe and well fed in a secure location. Cowards so different from true leaders who would lead their armies into the battle. Riding in the front row. Children are the easiest target. They are abducted, abused in front of their families, recruited as soldiers, and forced to do horrific things to other children and innocent human beings.
Both of my parents were born during World War II in Germany (my mother in a part that is part of Poland today). The first five years of their lives, they did not know what peace was like. They heard sirens, ran into basements and bunkers to find shelter, they lived on the little food that was available. My father lost his father when he was four. His father was barely 25. Already a war veteran at that age, he died of Tuberculosis. My mother and her family had to escape from the Russian Army. I don't know all the details but I heard various stories from grandparents of friends about what happened to families who did not manage to leave their houses early enough and encountered the soldiers who heard about what "all" the Germans were doing to innocent people in concentration camps. And who took it out on every German they found. I don't think that a little girl of 5 had anything to do with Hitler's horrific cruelties. But she sure paid for it... And if she survived, she might still be paying. Every night. With every nightmare that brings back what happened on that day. When the door was kicked in by those young Russians. She and millions of others.
The older I get the more I understand how my parents' behavior was affected by what they had experienced. By loosing a childhood. My father gave me a long list of books to read on the topic and book after book I had a better idea what he must have been through. That's how my father and I communicate. I write a blog and he suggests another book to read that explains why he his like he is.
At this very same moment there are millions of children who go through the same or way worse. Every night when they go to sleep, try to sleep, they don't know if they will survive the next day, don't know what kind of horrors the next day will bring.
And yet, a country like Germany, where every single family could easily feed another mouth, foster at least one child, only harbors a few thousand refugees. A political party that calls itself "Christian" claims that the country will get "overrun" by millions of refugees if they "opened the gates".
"Christian" values are being used to justify all kinds of ridiculous things such as to ban abortion and gay marriage but no one seems to think of using it to cite Jesus saying "Let the children alone and do not hinder them from coming to Me". Let them come. All of them.
You Christian Democrats and Chrisitan Social Union: Why don't you, just once, do the right, the Christian thing, and let them come. Give them a future. Show them that life is so much more than war. Nurture and raise them and let them go back home to spread the news that there are humans in the world who care about others. Plant a seed of good and see it grow. You might be surprised by the result.
You Christian Democrats and Chrisitan Social Union: Why don't you, just once, do the right, the Christian thing, and let them come. Give them a future. Show them that life is so much more than war. Nurture and raise them and let them go back home to spread the news that there are humans in the world who care about others. Plant a seed of good and see it grow. You might be surprised by the result.
