Long Road to Restoration

I live in the old Jewish District of Berlin. 90% of the people in the building that I currently reside in did not survive the Holocaust. At the end of my street was an orphanage and a home for the impoverished elderly. Instead of transporting them, they were killed and thrown in a mass grave next to the two buildings. This is the statue that stands in memorial. It struck me particularly today dusted in snow. I think so often as I wander the streets freezing these days, how terrifying it must have been for the victims of the Holocaust during the winter. Particularly the children and the elderly, unable to help themselves. I pray often as I run through this city that from these ashes hope and restoration will rise, and think often of the verse in the old testament that promised to "give beauty for ashed and oil of gladness" for our tears.