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Friends,

Today marks 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Soviet Red Army on January 27, 1945. A moment which revealed the full horror of the Nazi regime, laying bare the monumental scale of hatred and violence humans can inflict upon one another.

The Holocaust stands as an overwhelming and tragic chapter in human history. Approximately six million Jews, along with millions of others—including minorities targeted for their race, sexual orientation, disabilities, and beliefs—were stripped of their futures. The sheer loss is staggering, heartbreaking, and unimaginable.

In 2015, during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I had the profound honor of visiting Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center. That visit forever changed me. The thought-provoking architecture, heartbreaking photographs, and powerful artifacts moved me to tears as I encountered the immense pain preserved within those concrete walls.

Among the displays and names, I saw individuals just like you and me—people full of hope, dreams, and promise—reduced to mug shots and numbers, victims of violence and division simply for existing. Simply for existing as God made them, an existence others deemed them less than.

As I left that museum, I wrestled with a question many have asked: How can God exist in a world where such horrors take place?

For me, the answer came in the museum’s final installation: the Hall of Names. In Isaiah 43, we are reminded that God calls us by name, a name in which God is honored because of how we reflect God into the world in our souls. This divine identity calls for mutual respect, for no one is made greater than another.

Under the Hall’s illuminated dome, where the names and photographs of countless victims are preserved—with space left for those yet to be retrieved—I felt a profound reminder: we must never forget. We must never forget the destructive power of hatred, isolation, and division, because of how these human powers destroyed the greatest gift of God—our neighbor.

Our world is not yet free from forces that seek to diminish the divine beauty found in every person. Today’s anniversary offers us a moment to pause, reflect, and ask ourselves what kind of world we want to create for future generations, so that they can truly thrive in who God made them to be.

May we always remember, to never forget.

Alex+