The Holocaust Museum

The images that form the core of the narrative of the Holocaust were familiar to me, as a small, but very memorable, part of my elementary school education focused on them. Viewing the images at times was no more shocking than viewing the routine violence displayed on the nightly news in America; yet, the graphic details of a few images was horrifying--in them, I discovered my emotional connection to the dehumanization. For me, the themes and humans that constitute the narrative of the Holocaust are deeply personal: my grandfather is a survivor and, a significant part of my identity as a Jew and as a member of my family is influenced by the tragedy. Confronting the images uncovers a part of myself that is usually latent. I rarely discuss its significance for me personally. The dislocation of my family to the United States, the vignettes my grandfather has told me from his childhood under the Nazi regime, the enormity of the tragedy for the world engender a feeling that the Holocaust is sacred--to analyze is to profane what is sacred and to comprehend is to imagine yourself as a perpetrator or as a collaborator. If I wonder "would I be a violator of human rights like them," I am humanizing criminals, decreasing the emotional poignancy of my position and, perhaps, closing the moral gap between me and them.

Despite my reservation that discussing the tragedy would diminish its emotional salience, I found the conversations among the fellows engaging and illuminating. The trip to the Washington Holocaust Memorial Museum inspired a vigorous discussion of some of the basic concepts in human rights. One needs reasons to compliment sentiments in order to sustain one's commitment to protecting human rights. Still, I wade into these solemn waters
delicately albeit decisively.

-Eric

Greetings. The HIA program has been in DC for a few days, and everyone is thoroughly exhausted but still having a good time. We’ve spent the last two days visiting the Holocaust Museum (a comprehensive floor by floor tour), and then meeting with the museum directors to discuss our impressions. The subject matter is utterly brutal, and it is emotionally draining to spend nine hours each day viewing and discussing the massive violence done to Jews during the Holocaust. Although the museum exhibits were purposefully made palatable to people of all ages, poignant photographs and videos of death camps and ghettoes grind against any visitor’s conscience. Even the atmosphere is eerie, and the exhibits exude the atmosphere of a dead-somber haunted house. The directors mentioned that the entire museum is, in fact, strategically lit, as they wanted to recreate the dim lighting found within the barracks of concentration camps.

After three floors of dim-lighting, reality-sized cattle cars, sacks full of Zyklon B, and other grisly reminders of concentration camps, one emerges into the sanctuary. The sanctuary is a beautifully lit, circular room made of marble, with yahrtzeit candles ringing the room’s outer walls. As soon as I stepped into the room, a poem written by German playwright Bertolt Brecht raced through my mind. It had been stamped large on one of the exhibit’s walls, and was on the subject of receiving an American visa during the Holocaust. At the time, the United States had strategically offered asylum to famous European intellectuals, believing that they could contribute positively to the American Academy. The poem went as follows:

I know of course; its simply luck
That I’ve survived so many friends
But last night in a dream
I heard those friends say of me:
“Survival of the fittest”
And I hated myself.

Although neither I nor my grandparents received a visa to come to the United States during the Holocaust, I did reflect on my privilege as an American of the upper middle class. We do nothing to land our space in society, it is simply a role of the genetic dice, and I could not help but hate myself for the privileges with which I had been born. I just as easily could have been raised in Darfur, Kosovo, or Kigali, but I was raised in Pittsburgh, and have endured no great tragedy in my life. For this I am thankful, yet I still feel compelled to stay in touch with the greatest sources of rage and misery in our society. They challenge us constantly to take action on behalf of others, and without them, we have lost touch with the lives of many across the world.

-ZR