‘Why Was I Spared?’ Ivan Backer Reflects On Life After Escaping The Holocaust

From New England Public Radio-

In May of 1939, Jewish ten-year-old Ivan Backer boarded a train in Nazi-occupied Prague, headed for the United Kingdom. He was one of over 600 children taken to safety on “Kindertransport” trains, organized by a British stockbroker, Nicholas Winton.

Seventy-seven years later, he’s a former Episcopal minister and neighborhood activist living in Hartford. He tells the story of his life in his memoir, My Train To Freedom, which came out earlier this year.

I sat down with Ivan Backer and asked what he remembers of getting on that train.

More here-

http://nepr.net/news/2016/06/22/why-was-i-spared-author-ivan-backer-reflects-on-life-after-escaping-the-holocaust/

Onward Christian soldiers

From The Tablet-

Seventy years on, it may be hard to imagine the Second World War as a religious conflict. Yet at the time it was defined as the ultimate struggle for the Church’s survival
Wednesday 2 September will mark the seventieth anniversary of the formal surrender of Japan, and with it the end of the most destructive war in history. The Second World War resulted in the deaths of more than 55 million people, most of them civilians; it triggered the Holocaust, laid waste vast swathes of Europe and Asia, and saw the advent of nuclear weapons.

But for all its significance it remains poorly understood, not least in Great Britain. Here, perceptions of the conflict are largely governed by a complacent national mythology that still has an unsettling resonance among English football fans (“Where were you in World War Two?”, as Chelsea fans chanted on the Paris Metro last February).

More here-

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/features/2/6470/onward-christian-soldiers

Archbishop Welby praises 'ongoing project of reconciliation' on VJ Day

From Anglican News-

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, sent a message to the service of friendship and reconciliation at Canterbury Cathedral [yesterday] marking the 70th anniversary of Victory in Japan Day.

Veterans were joined by many Japanese and British promoters of reconciliation for the dedicated Evensong service, which has been held annually since 2005.

The service, which alternates each year between Canterbury and Coventry cathedrals, is organised by the International Friendship and Reconciliation Trust, which was formed five years ago by veterans of the Burma Campaign.

More here-

http://www.anglicannews.org/news/2015/08/archbishop-welby-praises-ongoing-project-of-reconciliation-on-vj-day.aspx

Priest tells of kamikaze pilot training during WWII

From Stars and Stripes- (Pretty amazing story)

Paul Saneaki Nakamura prepared three times to carry out a suicide attack for Japan during World War II. It took the country’s near-death for him to find religion and become a priest.

Nakamura recently shared his experiences — which included training as a kamikaze pilot, human torpedo and suicide bomber — with about 300 Marines at Camp Hansen to help them see war from a different perspective.

“I have always thought that my experience might be well compared to the historical Exodus,” he said, referring to the biblical story of the Jews who left Egypt, led by Moses to the Promised Land.

The 87-year-old retired Anglican bishop grew up on Okinawa as militarism swept across Japan. Like many others, he became an ultra-nationalist who firmly believed in selfless devotion to his country. He worshipped the emperor as god; offering his life to the emperor was the ultimate virtue.

More here-

http://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/priest-tells-of-kamikaze-pilot-training-during-wwii-1.325764

A World Away, the Seventh Game; Close at Hand, Condemned Nazis

From The New York Times-

The Protestant minister and the Roman Catholic priest had a $10 bet riding on the 1946 World Series. The minister, a Lutheran from Missouri, went with the St. Louis Cardinals, naturally. The priest, a Franciscan from upstate New York, was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, but he went with the Boston Red Sox to make things interesting.

These men of the cloth had earned this minor vice.

For the last 11 months, they had served as the chaplains at Nuremberg prison in Germany, offering spiritual counsel to the first Nazis to be tried for war crimes in the rubbed-raw wake of World War II. Among their flock were architects of genocide, responsible for the murder of many millions, most of them Jews.

Now it was mid-October, and this initial phase of postwar judgment was nearing its climactic end in a courts-and-prison complex called the Palace of Justice. The pastoral work of the Lutheran, the Rev. Henry Gerecke, and the Franciscan, the Rev. Sixtus O’Connor, was almost done.
More here-

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/sports/baseball/a-world-away-the-seventh-game-close-at-hand-condemned-nazis.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0