A Child of the 1940's

These are two calendar pictures from the 1940’s. I found the baby picture in a scrapbook of favorite pictures I had collected as a child. The other picture appeared on a 1948 calendar given out by Frank and Isabelle Moore, proprietors of the Claridon General Store in my neighborhood. I found this calendar in my parents’ collection of old calendars. (It is now hanging in my guest bathroom with my country outhouse décor!)

I was born in 1942. Like the girl in the picture with her collie and her doll, I enjoyed a happy childhood in Claridon, Ohio, a comfortable small crossroads town in America. At that same time, in Europe, the German government was mass-murdering millions of Jews--men, women, children and babies.

On a recent trip to the Dallas Holocaust Museum, I revisited the horror and the huge scope of this unbelievable carnage. May the world never again experience such evil! Could a Hitler ever come to such power again? Could a leader so deceive us into accepting his evil purposes? Could such a thing happen in a democracy with government of the people, by the people, for the people? Would we stand up against the injustice, ungodliness, and disrespect for human life?

Irena Sandler, a Polish social worker, stood up to it. She risked her life to rescue 2500 Jewish babies and children from the Warsaw ghettos during the holocaust in the 1940’s. Next year (2010) watch for the movie, “Life in a Jar,” to honor this brave woman.

And pray for the well-being of our children and grandchildren, that they may live a happy childhood and grow up to live in peace and righteousness, for Jesus’ sake!