The Darkside of Humanity
Most people don't look at a gorgeous spring day and think that it would be a perfect day to visit a holocaust museum.
I'm not most people.
As far as I know, I didn't lose anybody during the holocaust. I'm not Jewish. What I am is different. I am the Nazi definition of antisocial because I am unwilling to conform to normal standards of social behavior.
So I don't a have blood line leading back to years of discrimination. My people have not been run out of city after city and made to feel unwelcome in places all around the world. What I do have is empathy and sympathy. What I have is a conscience.
Through my school years I did several projects on the holocaust. Nobody understood why I would do that to myself, why I would repeatedly research a period of time that would always break me down and make me reach for the tissues. Walking through the exhibit I was once more reminded of why I did it.
It was a 'very' dark time in history. It was a time when we as a world community were truly shown that man's inhumanity to his fellow human was limitless and could reach far further than anybody could have expected.
As I read details on some of the suffering and cruelty that was inflicted on the Jewish people, the homosexuals, the Gypsies, anybody who was suspected of not adhering to an idealized version of the only correct way to be ... My heart broke time and time again. I walked up to the railcar intending to enter, to stand within it. I couldn't. I stood on the threshold and my feet refused to carry me over. It was so tiny. And to know that hundreds of people were jammed into that small space ... I just couldn't.
Often I am told that it's in the past, it doesn't matter, it's gone and we've moved on.
It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere.
-Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz (1958)
This is a large part of why I search out this time in our historical tapestry. It happened and we have to be on guard against it ever happening again. Nobody should have to go through such a thing and now that we know what the signs are we have to work together to prevent it from ever happening again. Simply look at the political arena we are presented with in these modern times. How many times do they use our fear of the unknown to guide our emotions and thinking so that it aligns with their agenda?
There is another side to this coin though. It's not just the pain and hate that drives me to learn more and more about this time. It is the hope, the perseverance, the heroism of the common man to help a stranger that lures me through the dark halls of history.
At the entrance of the garden is a large memorial and the museum has a basket of rocks for the patrons to place on the memorial, to mark that they were there. It is called a garden of hope and is in memory of the 1.5 million children who lost their lives in the Holocaust.
I had to get closer to read the inscribed quote.
The children that ended up in the camps were still taught art, literature, faith and hope by their elders. They continued to believe that there was an end to it, that rescue would come. Despite the repercussions of hiding or assisting "the enemy" many people did. They created false walls and floors and hiding spaces. Papers were given and transportation was arranged to ensure safe passage.
There was hope.
We have to band together to insure that everybody is given equal treatment and consideration. We have to make sure that no other group of people, no matter their race, religion, or sexuality, is ever treated as anything less than human ever again.
If we are together nothing is impossible. If we are divided all will fail.
-Winston Churchill
I'm not most people.
As far as I know, I didn't lose anybody during the holocaust. I'm not Jewish. What I am is different. I am the Nazi definition of antisocial because I am unwilling to conform to normal standards of social behavior.
So I don't a have blood line leading back to years of discrimination. My people have not been run out of city after city and made to feel unwelcome in places all around the world. What I do have is empathy and sympathy. What I have is a conscience.
Through my school years I did several projects on the holocaust. Nobody understood why I would do that to myself, why I would repeatedly research a period of time that would always break me down and make me reach for the tissues. Walking through the exhibit I was once more reminded of why I did it.
It was a 'very' dark time in history. It was a time when we as a world community were truly shown that man's inhumanity to his fellow human was limitless and could reach far further than anybody could have expected.
As I read details on some of the suffering and cruelty that was inflicted on the Jewish people, the homosexuals, the Gypsies, anybody who was suspected of not adhering to an idealized version of the only correct way to be ... My heart broke time and time again. I walked up to the railcar intending to enter, to stand within it. I couldn't. I stood on the threshold and my feet refused to carry me over. It was so tiny. And to know that hundreds of people were jammed into that small space ... I just couldn't.
Often I am told that it's in the past, it doesn't matter, it's gone and we've moved on.
It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere.
-Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz (1958)
This is a large part of why I search out this time in our historical tapestry. It happened and we have to be on guard against it ever happening again. Nobody should have to go through such a thing and now that we know what the signs are we have to work together to prevent it from ever happening again. Simply look at the political arena we are presented with in these modern times. How many times do they use our fear of the unknown to guide our emotions and thinking so that it aligns with their agenda?
There is another side to this coin though. It's not just the pain and hate that drives me to learn more and more about this time. It is the hope, the perseverance, the heroism of the common man to help a stranger that lures me through the dark halls of history.
At the entrance of the garden is a large memorial and the museum has a basket of rocks for the patrons to place on the memorial, to mark that they were there. It is called a garden of hope and is in memory of the 1.5 million children who lost their lives in the Holocaust.
I had to get closer to read the inscribed quote.
The children that ended up in the camps were still taught art, literature, faith and hope by their elders. They continued to believe that there was an end to it, that rescue would come. Despite the repercussions of hiding or assisting "the enemy" many people did. They created false walls and floors and hiding spaces. Papers were given and transportation was arranged to ensure safe passage.
There was hope.
We have to band together to insure that everybody is given equal treatment and consideration. We have to make sure that no other group of people, no matter their race, religion, or sexuality, is ever treated as anything less than human ever again.
If we are together nothing is impossible. If we are divided all will fail.
-Winston Churchill