WWII memorials and senior conference

We were so excited to attend a "Seniors Conference" in Kharkov.   We took a wiggly, jiggly overnight train to Kharkov.  The magic and synergy of other senior missionaries, the insights of our mission presidents and his focus.    The red building is one of the Kharkov branches and it's unique and beautiful inside.   Two floors looks of winding hallways and only two friendly drunks interrupted our meetings before they locked the front door.   Our meals were catered by a local restaurant and friends made by shared mission experiences.  Staying in a lovely hotel for 2 nights and a tiny bit of shopping and sightseeing.   Then back to the train for another sleep interrupted ride back home to Mariupol.    Our Bolivian mission president made a statement  worth repeating.   "Do you know why they only call Mission Presidents for only 3 years?  Because it has been determined that is how long they can live without sleep. "  We have friends who will surely agree with that statement.  It's a big job.                                        

This is the "motherland"  it is a WWII memorial.  We walked the path about a football field down an tree lined avenue toward her.   As you approached you can hear her heartbeat, a slow soft rhythmic sound "thump, thump.     I was quite moving.    She represents all mankind we were told. 

Our tour guide.taxi driver?  One of our Jewish food caters.  I asked if his father lived during WWII, no he told me his grandfather did and he doesn't talk about it much. 

The war memorial includes both Jews, Russians and Germans in mass graves. 

 This sacred ground holds more than 16 thousand Jewish men, women and children.   It also holds Russian and Germans killed during this war.   All together a half million bodies rest in this area.   It truly was sacred grounds and represents a horrific waste of human life. 

  Then we drove to another memorial, a Jewish Menora representation on the hill as we entered. 



Then a small memorial museum, it looks like the 10 commandments, but look again, it is one commandment written with 10 languages.   

Inside the small memorial on the walls are the names of those who were marched 10 miles from the Jewish Ghetto in winter, to be shot and buried in mass graves.   The walls reflect the family name, sometimes the word for Child, or Grandparents and even Newborn Infant.   This was very somber more so than the other because this was only a Jewish memorial.    Around the world today ethnic cleasing continues, it has to be such an offense to our Father in Heaven.