(cross-posted at The Agonist)
If you ever find yourself in Washington, DC, one place you absolutely MUST go is the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Take my advice, though; when you go, you should probably do so at a time when you don’t have anything planned afterwards. Otherwise, you may well end up as I did yesterday, an emotional wreck who’s done for the day.
We spent close to three hours wandering through the permanent exhibit, and even though I’ve been a student of that period in European history for many years, I left the museum in a frame of mind unlike anything I can remember for quite some time. I know the stories, I’ve read the history, and I’ve read and listened to the eyewitness accounts…and I still left horribly, morbidly depressed. To think that human beings could be capable of that sort of cold, calculated mass murder, and that it ended only 62 years ago, is something I still find difficult to comprehend.
Part of me wants to think that we’ve learned from history, that “Never Again” actually means what we want it to. I want to think that, but being an honest person, I realize that one needs look no further than Rwanda, Bosnia, Sierra Leone, and Darfur (ad infinitum, ad nauseum) to know that humanity hasn’t learned anything- nor is it likely ever to- from history.
Six million people is a large, almost incomprehensible number, but each of those six million was an individual, with a life, with hopes, with dreams for their future. Each of those six million died a horrible, excruciating death they didn’t deserve. Each of those six million was murdered by others who hated them simply because of who they were- their religion, their customs, their beliefs- as if their heritage gave them the right to play God and destory the lives and dreams of other human beings,.
The worst part of it for me was that the US government was complicit in this horrific chapter in history. No, no one from the White House or the State Department or the Army fired up the ovens or gassed innocent Jews, but neither did they do what was absolutely within their power in order to minimize the scope of the genocide. Too many people in positions of power KNEW what was happening and yet did NOTHING. Too many Americans lacked the moral courage to do the right thing, and when all is said and done, they can and should be held every bit as accountable as many of the Nazis who were tried, convicted, and executed. Thankfully, at least the Holocaust Memorial Museum is willing to do exactly that. We may have been liberators, but we were also unindicted co-conspriators.
Like I said, you NEED to see the Holocaust Museum, but don’t do it at the beginning of a long day of sightseeing. You might just find yourself, as I did, in no frame of mind to play tourist. Sometimes, we need to be reminded of what we’re capable of if our hatred and prejudice and given free and unfettered reign.
