Thread by @AdamWagner1

As night falls, @jrwagz light a #YellowCandle to remember a single life lost in the Holocaust.

Blima Lancberg died age 8, the same age as our son is today. She was born and died in Sonowiec, Poland. She would have been 85 today had she lived.

We must never forget

@jrwagz What do we know about little Blima?

Not very much.

From her profile in the @yadvashem database, based on a relative's testimony, we know that she was born in 1934 and died in 1942 in Sosnowiec.

Blima lived for eight years and her memory is now reduced to this single form, and a few scant biographical details, filled in in Hebrew script.

Was she a lively girl? Did she have many friends? Did she want to be scientist when she grew up? We will probably never know.

We do know about Sosnowiec.

If Blima was born in Sosnowiec and died in 1942 then it is highly likely she was moved into the ghetto along with 10s of thousands of other Jews from the area.

By 1943 the entire population of the ghetto had been murdered or transported to Auschwitz

Blima's living memories would have been dominated by the steady denial of her family's human rights

In 1939, when she was 5, the Great Synagogue in Sosnowiec was burned, denying their right to religious freedom

Blima's family were probably evicted from their home - denying their right to privacy and family life.

They probably had their business plundered and possessions stolen, denying their right to peaceful enjoyment of property

Then they were probably all murdered, by gun or gas, denying their most basic right - to life.

It is no coincidence that the rights guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were a kind of haunting mirror image of the rights denied by the Nazis to their enemies

The human rights framework was forged in the flames of the Holocaust. The world came together and said ‘never again’. In a few short years:

- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- 1951 Genocide Convention and Refugee Convention
- 1953 European Convention on human rights

But genocide has happened again, repeatedly

I made a short film with three genocide survivors - their experiences were different but the commonality was the gradual stripping of human rights which laid the groundwork for mass murder

Tonight I remember a single life - Blima Lancberg

I remember millions who were murdered in the Holocaust and other genocides

And I implore you to support human rights laws and principles.

Because history tells us the road to the gas chambers is paved by the denial of rights

This morning, Blima’s candle is still burning.

#YomHaShoah (day of Holocaust remembrance) lasts until sundown, as should Blima’s candle.

Please look at the #YellowCandle hashtag and spend a few moments taking in the thousands of stories of human lives lived and lost

As night falls again and #YomHaShoah ends our candle in memory of 8-year-old Blima Lancberg still burns, though it is nearly extinguished.

Thank you for taking a moment to let her memory live again

Until next year

#YellowCandle