Holocaust Museum

     Sometimes the past is difficult to look at, especially when looking back forces you to look at yourself. I want to share another of my journal entries from my time in Israel.

     The unscheduled visit to the Holocaust Museum was an exciting surprise. I had never been to one before and had always found the Holocaust to be a point of interest. I remember a history project in fifth grade when I first learned of the event. It shocked me that so many human beings could be so cruelly abused. This wasn't even ancient history, it was recent and relateable.
     I was unprepared for how emotional I would become. In the first stages of the museum, I read about the almost imperceptible onset of racism in Germany. Much like the frog in boiling water metaphor, discrimination crept in slowly. People began making generalizations about others, assumptions that some people were too different. This slowly turned into the idea that one group was superior to another. I began to feel a personal indictment for some of the attitudes  I have, at times, harbored. How many times have I thought, even just a little, that I was better than someone else? It is that hardly noticeable attitude that opens to door to tragedies like the Holocaust.
     Continuing through the museum, it was as if I was waiting for a hero to show up. I waited for the non-Jewish neighbors to speak out in protest. I waited for the adjacent countries to object. Most of all, I waited for the U.S., my own country, to step in. I was shaken by a quote from a German pastor:
      First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out --
      Because I was not a Socialist.
      Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out --
      Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
      Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out --

      Because I was not a Jew.

      Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me.

The quote was so striking to me. It challenges the "not my problem" attitude that is so easy to adopt. Injustice is everyone's problem. If we wait until it directly effects us, it becomes too late. With this in mind, I continued to wait for the video or description or photo of the U.S. intervening. I waited in vain. Soon, I saw that not only had the U.S. ignored the injustice in Germany, but it had closed its doors to Jewish refugees. The victims had nowhere to go, no relief from the oppression of the Nazi party.

     Indignant and embarrassed, I began to watch the testimonies of those who had lived through the Holocaust. In its early stages, people lived in fear, children watched fathers and mothers be taken away. The tears came as I thought about how senseless it all was. Nothing can justify a child living with fear or a family broken apart. No reasoning can account for people being displaced, humiliated, and impoverished. Long before I reached the more graphic detailsof the internment camps I was unable to control my tears. The words "this never should have happened" echoed over and oever through my head. The most paralyzing idea was how easily the attitudes of the people who initiated, ignored, or allowed the Holocaust could be repeated, and are repeated by myself and others every day. The most dangerous thing we can do is to say another holocaust could never happen, for we are not like those people. That is the very sentiment that set the disaster in motion.

     Contrary to what we want to believe, holocausts have happened and continue to happen since WWII. But despite the attention that these deserve, I'm not talking about the big things. I'm talking about the small ones. I'm calling you and me out on thinking we are better than others. I'm blowing the whistle on the small injustices that you and I allow daily. As a writer I feel the need to draw you into this, but honestly, this post is talking to myself. 'Get over yourself' may be a good motto to adopt.