Those who still remember

People happen to end up bonded in many ways. Surfing through the entire Singapore airport for a plug to charge my phone, I end up next to an Australian couple on their way home from their European holiday. They visited Lithunia, her father’s hometown to meet relatives she’d never met before.

During WWII her father and uncle were taken to Buchenwald. She and her husband now visited the camp where her father had been held. Many stories from relatives that her dad never shared. She tells me how happy she is that her 19-old daughter was with them too to learn about their history.

Both husband and wife tell me stories about the touching experience of meeting cousins, aunts in Lithuania, those who still remember, who tell stories of the Soviet rule. She says: “In Australia we know very little about what happened in Europe then, how people allowed this to happen to other people.” I see this trip changed her whole world.