FREEDOM HAS A PRICE AND IT COULD BE A HIGH PRICE

In most of the countries I have visited I tour memorials and sites of battlefields where people died for freedom. The list of martyrs for freedom is very, very long. How many wars and revolutions have been fought on behalf of freedom: freedom from slavery, from oppression, from foreign domination; freedom of conscience and religious freedom? Those of us who are privileged to live in countries where religious freedom is protected by laws, tend to forget the price our own freedom has cost.  We enjoy it, like we enjoy the air we breathe, without asking why or without thanking anyone for this great gift. I think the time has come to do just that!

I was born the year World War II ended in Europe. I grew up with the stories of freedom fighters and concentration camps. My grandparents on my father's side, who were Swiss citizens, came from Geneva. My family owned a farm partially surrounded by a forest.  German soldiers occupied this region and it was almost impossible to get out of Switzerland. But my grandfather knew how to do it. Members of the French Resistance and a few Jews came to find a temporary refuge in our property. For them, the only way to escape was to cross the Swiss border. Grandfather was Swiss, but when it came to helping people he could not stay neutral. He helped several times until the day he was arrested, sent to prison  and then to the concentration camp of Dachau. He died a few months before liberation by American soldiers.

On my mother’s side, her three brothers and younger sister joined the allies in London and fought in North Africa. One never came back.  

Like many people of my generation, I knew from my childhood that the freedom I enjoyed had a price and this price could be too high. But I did not have to pay the price that others did.

I believe that from time to time we should say a big public Thank You to those who enabled the freedom we enjoy today in not a few countries.  

It should be a moral obligation to say thank you to those countries and to the people who protect our freedom, including our religious freedom. It should be a way to remember those who sacrificed their lives for this precious gift.

This is the concept of the Festival of Religious Freedom. It is an occasion for as many people as possible to say a big public Thank You to God and to the country for the religious freedom enjoyed. This can be done at the local, national and international level, by you and me.

 -- Dr. John Graz, Secretary General, International Religious Liberty Association

My family owned a farm partially surrounded by a forest.