by Joyce Trotman.
A Letter to Canon Hawkey from Joyce Trotman
To Rev. Canon James Hawkey, Westminster Abbey, 20 Dean`s Yard, London, SW1P 3PA
Dear Canon Hawkey,
A Meditation marking this season of Holocaust Memorial
At the Church-of-England Grammar School I attended in British Guiana,
now Guyana, during the 1940`s, the girl who sat next to me in class was a white
girl whose name was Judith Faerman. Until I met her I thought that all white
people were English of Scottish like the Headmistress and members of staff
of the school, or like the pastor of the Congregational church I attended. Her
name was Judith Faerman and she told me that she had come from Romania,
a country that at that time I did not know existed. When she did not return to
school after one holiday, I asked for her, (I missed her), I was told that the
family had emigrated to a country in South America. I was about twelve or
thirteen years old. It was a long afterwards, that I realised that she was Jewish
and that Romania was a country in Europe, and that maybe, her presence in
the country and subsequent departure must have had something to do with
Hitler and “his final solution for Jews”.
During my adult years when I first met my friends Joyce and Irving Adler,
now deceased, their surnames meant nothing to me, until I discoveed that they
had been victims of McCarthyism. They too were Jews. When the first candle
was lit I was reminded of Judith and Joyce and Irving.
The following Meditation speaks for itself.
Do forgive me if I have imposed on your time. I am just sharing.
Best wishes.
Yours sincerely, Joyce Trotman
Lest We Forget: A meditation marking this season of Holocaust Memorial by Joyce Trotman
Part One
That person would be severely lacking in empathy who was not moved spiritually by the Meditation marking the season of Holocaust Memorial to mark the atrocities of the Nazis and other genocides: European Jews, Armenians, people of Rwanda, Srebrenica, Uyghur Muslims in China, and LGBT victims of the Holocaust. The candle lightings were interspersed with prayers and readings and the address was given by Rev Canon James Hawkey, Theologian of Westminster Abbey.
But as I listened I recognised the fact that the prayers, readings and the music were all important elements of the Meditation, yet I had the feeling that something was missing. It is a paradox that the British Government was not in any way responsible for the atrocities meted out to the people for whom the candles were lit. It generously made it possible for a Sunday Morning Meditation, which marked the genocides committed in the 20th and the 21st centuries by other governments. What was missing was the marking of the “genocides” committed by successive British governments for three centuries, from the 16th to the 19th centuries, as part of this Meditation.
The Rev. Canon James Hawkey opened his address by mentioning Belsen, Auschwitz, Srebrenica. I added Barbados, British Guiana, Jamaica, Trinidad, St Lucia, and other islands of the Caribbean as the countries connected with this form of British “genocide”.
In my imagination I lit the seventh candle first, for our African ancestors who for three centuries suffered and died as a result of the dehumanising effects of the British slave trade and the special system of chattel slavery, in which white human beings including members of both Church an State, converted black human beings into beasts of burden and in some cases branded them like cattle to express that ownership; next, for those who survived to be further exploited as “children” of the Empire; and, lastly, for their present day descendants- the Windrush generation.
It is my hope that a seventh candle be lit for them at any future observance of Holocaust Memorial Day.
Lest we forget.
Part Two
“Come to Meeting for Worship with heart and mind prepared” says number 9 of our Advices and Queries, and I often look upon the Sunday Worship on BBC 4 as my preparation. Thus it was that when I joined my fellow Quakers for our Meeting for Worship the solemnity and sacredness of this meditation occupied my thoughts as I centred down into the silence of our worship, conscious of the reminder that we “enter with reverence into communion with God and respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit”. As often happens when the Holy Spirit is at work among us and guiding us, a Friend in the Meeting with thoughts of the Meditation that she too had listened to, read number 32 of our Advices and Queries as her response to what she had heard. I quote:
Bring into God`s light those emotions, attitudes and prejudices in yourself which lie at the root of destructive conflict, acknowledging your need for forgiveness and grace. In what ways are you involved in the work of reconciliation between individuals, group and nations?
After the reading I remembered a very sincere, soulful ministry that touched my heart.
At another Quaker Meeting for Worship that I was visiting a young man earnestly spoke, “If, as we say, there is that of God in every person, nobody gets hurt.” I concluded that if we really kept this in mind and acted accordingly, nobody would get hurt and everybody would be loved as God loves us.
“Beloved let us love one another: for love is of God.” The Holy Bible: New Testament. John 4:7
I look forward to the lighting of the seventh candle.
Lest we Forget.
– Joyce Trotman (of Croydon Quaker Meeting, London)
Quaker Socialist Society 
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