A burnt and destroyed Evangelical Church south of Cairo
was in ruins earlier this month.
During a visit last week to
Dachau, the former concentration camp near Munich, German Chancellor
Angela Merkel laid a wreath in memory of the tens of thousands the Nazis
murdered there. The memory of their fate, she said, “fills me with deep sadness
and shame.” Dachau — the original concentration camp, established
in March 1933 — radiates a constant reminder about the bottomless human
capacity to commit evil, or to look away when evil is committed. “How could
Germans go so far as to deny people human dignity and the right to live?”
Merkel asked. “Places such as this warn each one of us to help ensure that such
things never happen again.”
Never?
As Merkel spoke, Copts and other Christians in Egypt were reeling from
a wave of attacks more savage than any in modern Egyptian history. Islamist
mobs across the country torched scores of churches
— some more than 1,000 years old
— along with convents, monasteries, and Christian-owned homes and businesses. A
Franciscan school near Cairo was looted and burned, said Sister Manal, the
principal; then she and other nuns were paraded through the streets
“like prisoners of war” to the jeers and abuse of the mob.
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