“Strands of Peace” (SP) is the name that the Peace Strands Association (SPA) has given to actions, often small and almost imperceptible, but at times defiant or even heroic, taken in times stained with horror, terror, lethal violence or flagrant injustice. These are unselfish actions to help or save those who are threatened, abused or humiliated for being labelled as enemies or aliens, actions which disobey and fracture the rules and social norms of the own group, all while tugging at a human bond which is deeper than the need to be accepted or the fear to be punished by “your own”.
The most famous example of SP are those taken by Oskar Schindler, a Nazi who intervened, often selflessly, in order to save the lives of Jews employed in his factory during the Holocaust. This was acknowledged in 1993, but only after seven years of research, by the Commission for Designating the Righteous in the Yad Vashem Museum of Holocaust in Jerusalem.
These PS are tiny, but insightful, since an integral part of the huge web of links which humans establish and sustain to support and care for others and to receive the support and care of others. Everybody’s life relies on this web. The PS are the threads which remain as life bridges when the tissue of links seems to be ripped by violence.