The Christian People Who Were Burned to Ashes on Ash Wednesday
By Michael Hoffman: It was Shrove Tuesday, 1945 in the magnificent German art city of Dresden, which was packed with helpless Christian refugees fleeing the Red Army of the Stalinist USSR. Dresden’s native Lutheran and Catholic children, dressed in their festive Saxon folk costumes, were aboard a train taking them home after Mardi Gras parties at different points in the far-flung city.Still merry from the night’s festivities, they cavorted on the train prior to Ash Wednesday, February 14, and the solemnities that would be observed even in wartime, in memory of the passion and death of Jesus. In the sky Allied fighter planes caught sight of the civilian train and opened fire on the children inside, whose blood was soon pouring out of the wreckage.