The Danger of Silencing our History

We learn about history in order to educate ourselves about the past and better prepare ourselves for the future. In the following article, I discuss my experience learning about the Holocaust as a young adult, and my thoughts on the significance of the current Administrations response to the events in Charlottesville, VA this past weekend.

When I was fifteen years old I visited Auschwitz Concentration camp in Owicim, Poland. I stood in the place where millions arrived to the site of their demise--persecuted due to their ethnicity, religion, political beliefs, and sexual orientation.

I will never forget the ravens circling above the rows of cement and brick buildings. As I craned my head back to look at the hundreds of birds swarming, somehow decades later still being able to smell the death, blood and fear, I could not help but stare in horror and disbelief. The imagery in the sky brought me back to a piece I had read a few months prior to my travels. In the poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge an old man shoots an Albatross, putting an end to both its life and its freedom. Upon first reading the story, I struggled to understand what compelled him to do such a thing. Coleridge describes the agony the man experiences on the ship:

Alone, alone, all, all alone,

Alone on a wide wide sea!

And never a saint took pity on

My soul in agony...

I looked upon the rotting sea,

And drew my eyes away;

I looked upon the rotting deck,

And there the dead men lay...

I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;

But or ever a prayer had gusht,

A wicked whisper came, and made

My heart as dry as dust. [1]

The Ancient Mariner shoots down the Albatross, to later face great penance. Staring up at the ravens circling in the sky I could connect with the Ancient Mariners hatred of the bird. Trapped on a boat, starving, and surrounded by death--the bird soaring free in the wind must have been torturous. I imagined how much those imprisoned at Auschwitz must have hated those crows, living in pure and utter freedom. Their inexorable, ever-lasting screeching in the sky served as a constant reminder of the freedom that was stripped away from them. The birds feathers, dark as night, were a portending of the pain and death to come. I cannot imagine how it must feel to endure such a sense of powerlessness to a cawing bird in the sky.

One of the most moving exhibits I saw displayed in the section of Auschwitz that stands as a museum were childrens drawings preserved from the walls within the concentration camp. I followed a hallway into a large room with cave-like paintings decorating the peripheries. The voices of children reading diary entries from their predecessors filled the silence, their words expressing the fear and confusion of the original authors. One drawing in particular stood out to me from the rest. There was a little king and queen etched into the wall, both with tears streaming down their faces. I pictured the little girl or boy, whom would never get to know a childhood, drawing their hopes and dreams in the very place I stood. I heard their wish that a powerful king or queen would cry for them--empathize with them; save them. Perhaps they imagined they are the little queen--or aspire to be--in order to cry for all those that they lost. Sadly, we will never know.

I cannot help but feel angry that no king or queen stepped in before so many lost their lives. I was raised to believe and trust in my leaders. I grew up with the hope that a system would be in place to prevent such atrocities from ever happening again. We are taught at a very young age to learn from our mistakes. If you hit someone or act out, you are punished; hopefully learning to restrain yourself from committing such an action again. Remembering and acknowledging the mistakes from our past are an essential factor in learning from them. Today in Germany, students are taught in great detail about the atrocities that took place in their country.[2] One German teacher explains that "teachers with good will used to make German children feel it was somehow their fault, that they had a weight on their shoulders. The war was still a fresh wound."[3] By sharing the guilt of their ancestors, the German people are, in many ways, ensuring that future generations will never fall down the same path again. How can we learn from the past if we do not acknowledge it? The more we refuse to admit that something happened, the greater the likelihood that we will forget; the greater the likelihood that we will look away as history threatens to repeat itself.

On January 27th, 2017 the following statement was released by the White House in regards to Holocaust Remembrance Day:

It is with a heavy heart and somber mind that we remember and honor the victims, survivors, heroes of the Holocaust. It is impossible to fully fathom the depravity and horror inflicted on innocent people by Nazi terror.[4]

Nowhere in this statement does President Trump acknowledge the specific groups of people targeted during the Holocaust. Despite the fact that over six million Jewish people were sought out and murdered, he does not once name their suffering. To omit such a critical fact about a genocide is not just careless; it is dehumanizing and delegitimizing. In addition, the failure to acknowledge the anti-Semitism that caused such atrocities shows a lack of understanding that hateful ideologies do, in fact, cause immense violence.

Donald Trump refuses to acknowledge the suffering that certain groups of people in our society have experienced in the past, and continue to today. On August 11th, 2017 at 8:45 p.m. over 200 mostly young, white men walked onto the University of Virginia campus carrying torches while chanting Blood and soil! and Jews will not replace us![5] The following day, the numbers exponentially greater, alt-righters gathered waving Confederate and Nazi flags. Their message was unmistakably one of hate and violence. Later in the day, a car drove into a crowded group of counter-protestors injuring nineteen and killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.[6] Violence broke out on many other occasions throughout the afternoon. One video displayed a group of armed white men violently beating the helpless Deandre Harris. The young black man had eight staples in his head, a broken wrist, and chipped tooth.[7] I wonder where the police were to intervene, the attack committed only feet from the local police station.

On August 12th, following this spree of violence, the most powerful man in the world offered these words as a response:

We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one![8]

Yet again, Donald Trump fails to address the nature of the hate and violence that occurred. He fails to acknowledge that the violence that happened was a direct result of white supremacy. He equates self-described Nazis with those there to speak out against ideas filled with hate and discrimination. I think there is blame on both sides. You had some very bad people in that group. You also had some very fine people on both sides.[9] I do not understand how someone who shares the beliefs of Adolf Hitler, a name that brings me chills, can be described as a very fine person. I am repulsed by the fact that the President of the United States would refuse to condemn such a group of people. I refuse to accept that the leader of our country allows such moral bankruptcy to be acceptable and normalized.

After the rally, the following was said by a self-defined Nazi in attendance:

We are assembled to defend our history, our heritage and to protect our race to the last man, Von Kotch said, wearing a protective helmet and sporting a wooden shield and a broken pool cue. We came here to stand up for the white race.[10]

As a member of the white race, I can confidently say that I have never been discriminated against, threatened, assaulted, or been withheld privileges because of the color of my skin. I have never felt afraid in the presence of police, the institution made with the very purpose of making us feel safe. I have never had to make a conscious decision about what clothes I put on in the morning, fearing that what I wear would affect how others treated me. My people in this country are not profiled because of the shade of their skin with which they were born, we do not feel the effects of mass incarceration or police brutality. No white child has ever been turned away at the door of an academic institution. It has never been a question whether or not the white man got a vote. Our institution has never considered my people less than a whole person. So please tell me, Mr. Kotch, what on earth are you standing up for?

The history and heritage of the white man is one filled with shame. Our history begins with the mass murder and unlawful theft of land from native people. Our heritage is built on taking advantage of those who are weaker and more vulnerable than us for personal gains. The white man travelled to places far away and bought fellow humans in order to create institutionalized slavery. He profited off of the pain and suffering of the black man. He created a system of institutionalized racism in order to protect his position of power.

The white man hunted those who seemed different from him, those who threatened the status quo. He tried women for sorcery and hung them in front of their children. He encouraged neighbors to spy on one another and attack those seeming to share our Soviet enemys ideals. He put hundreds of thousands of Japanese in internment camps, violating their most basic of civil liberties. The white man dropped atomic bombs on innocents, invaded foreign lands to extend his power, silenced those without a voice, and put boots on the ground in places far from home.

Our history, our heritage, is indefensible. We have repeatedly taken advantage of the vulnerable and refused to acknowledge it. Throughout the election, I could not help but wonder about the meaning behind Donald Trumps slogan: Make America Great Again. At what point in our history was America great? Was it when the white man could hang a black man without the blink of an eye? Or when women did not leave the house and had no right to vote?

There are few times in our countrys history when I can honestly say that I am proud to be an American. I am proud for what our country aspires to bea nation where anyone can achieve their dream; where life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is attainable for all. I think it would be nave to think that we have achieved this. Our country is at a critical moment. We are being led by a man who has forgotten our historya man who invites the past to resurface. The Holocaust served as a lesson for all generations of Germans to come. The German people will likely never again see the rise of a leader preaching genocide and world domination. This is not just because of the impact of the atrocities Adolf Hitler caused, but the deliberate efforts of the people to educate themselves on, acknowledge, and repent for the sins of their ancestors. It baffles me how we have not done so as an American people. We are somehow living with the idea that we are morally superior as a nation, ignorant to all the mistakes we have madeand the pain that we have caused. Perfection does not make a nation great. Nations flourish when they look back on their mistakes, acknowledge their flaws, and grow from them. Refusing to admit that we are anything less than great is a danger to our own country. The moment that we silence our own history is the moment that we face the greatest risk of repeating it.

[1] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43997/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner-text-of-1834

[2] http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2014/02/06/how_do_german_students_learn_about_the_holocaust.html

[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/arts/27iht-27holocaust.10451889.html

[4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-statement-marking-holocaust-remembrance-leaves-out-mention-of-jews/2017/01/27/0886d3c2-e4bd-11e6-a547-5fb9411d332c_story.html?utm_term=.362e399068e7

[5] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/local/charlottesville-timeline/?utm_term=.841aeea56213

[6] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/local/charlottesville-timeline/?utm_term=.7070eee8975d

[7] http://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/warren-county/mason-community/charlottesville-violence-police-looking-into-3-ohio-men-accused-in-white-supremacist-protest-violencecharlottesville-viole

[8] http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-updates-trump-tweets-charlottesville-violence-htmlstory.html

[9] http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-lashes-alt-left-charlottesville-fine-people-sides/story?id=49235032

[10] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/fights-in-advance-of-saturday-protest-in-charlottesville/2017/08/12/155fb636-7f13-11e7-83c7-5bd5460f0d7e_story.html?utm_term=.91f55e293a41