Ten years is a long time in the life of every person. Because time is the most valuable asset we have, and because it is irreversible, the thought of lost time troubles us every time we look back. Time would be lost if we did not live as human beings, did not gain experiences, did not learn, did not create, did not enjoy life, and did not suffer. Lost time is unfulfilled time, empty time. The past years were certainly not that. We have lost much, immeasurably much, but it was not lost time. And even though the ability to forget is a grace, memory and the repetition of acquired knowledge belong to a responsible life...
(Dietrich Bonhoeffer /1906–1945/,
excerpt from the text Reflection at the Threshold of 1943, written for the tenth anniversary of Hitler's rise to power;
quoted from the book Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Resistance and Surrender, Letters from Prison. Kalich 2023)
