Healing the Horrors of War

Copyright © 2006 Barry G. Moses.

My step-mother is planning a trip to the former Yugoslavia where she will revisit her childhood home and make amends with painful memories from her past. Her family descended from ethnic Germans who settled the region some time in the 1700s. They would have received shelter within Germany at the close of the Second World War, but for various personal or family reasons, they remained in Yugoslavia. When the communist regime took power under Tito, ethnic Germans were sorely persecuted and imprisoned in secret concentration camps. As a little girl, she witnessed firsthand the horrors of starvation, forced labor, and death.

This is really her story to tell, but on some level she invited me to share the story when she asked me to help her pray for healing as she returns to the land of her birth. She asked me to pray over several items she plans to leave at a spot where her relatives suffered and died. Her grandson is holding these items in the photograph above. The objects she asked me to bless resemble ones her brother made when he was also a small child protecting her in the camp.

With her permission, I will talk about this more; perhaps after she returns.