A day after visiting the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC with my daughter's sunday school class, I'm haunted by echoes unspoken. With trepidation and preparation we made the trip, knowing the story but unsure of what the toll confronting this portrayal of the worst human beings are capable of would exact. I was proud of the questions these young people asked, of the courage they displayed in facing the horrors, and was equally admiring of the job the designers of the museum did in tackling the challenge of telling the story without succumbing to any number of pitfalls of sensationality, gore, etc.
A few moments stand out in my reflections: on display was one of many early computers ( Holerith tabulators, then the most advanced machines available) which was used by the Nazis to locate all of the future victims of the death camps, and vastly facilitated the efficient operations of locating, then disappearing, large numbers of the population. But it seems to me that before these people could physically disappear, they had to be "psychologically disappeared" from the consciousness of the rest of the population. It seemed as though no one noticed they were gone.
There was a display of a scale model made by a resident of one of the ghettos (which preceeded the relocation to the death camps) which showed in detail how walls had been constructed around the designated zones, preventing knowledge or contact between one side or the other. For a time, life continued as a new kind of "normal" on both sides of the walls.
Over and again, the plea "Never again" was implicit. Yet I'm afraid.
It seems to me, it *has* already happened again. Certainly in the 1970's when two million Cambodian's "disappeared", and more recently, in death squads on every continent. But even more subtly, it may be happening now, as the barriers of poverty, lack of education, cultural hatred and fear mount invisible walls ghettoizing ever larger numbers of people, who begin to "psychologically" disappear from our consciousness. Whether "we" are walled in or "they" are walled out, the one possibility which can begin to change the situation becomes more remote.
Until and unless each of us finds a way to reach beyond our normal comfort levels of association to extend the help of sharing what we know with another, (and in so doing learn where unity transcends appearances) the walls will grow. It doesn't matter much how simple the act of giving, the care of sharing skills and enabling *someone*, *anyone* to move even a single step beyond where habit and custom would anchor their options can build the bridges which alone may decrease the certainty of our repitition of historical mass insanity.
I have no call to arms, or call to action, just the wish to find a way to join our "good intentions" in the cause of healing acts. After sharing these thoughts this morning, a friend approached me saying she will be working in an evening class tutoring research skills in Trenton as a volunteer. I know I can add online searching skills to what she can offer, and maybe first steps like this are all we can hope for.
Let's start looking, moving, choosing while there is still time.
Peace,
Ferdi
January 30, 1994
Ferdi Serim (0609) 799-0087 (school)
ferdi@tigger.jvnc.net (Global Enterprise Services)
ferdi@cosn.org (Consortium for School Networking)
"Waltzes with Gophers"