It's been a while since my last post and I realize I did promise to write more consistently but things have gotten busy for me. I was so moved at this time that I could not stand going to sleep before writing something about it.
I have just finished watching The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and was filled with so many different emotions. It wasn't the movie itself that created these emotion--although it did well in its portrayal of the time period and child innocence-- it was the fact that it was history. History has shown us so much and as much as I despise learning about it in school and potentially failing the class, it's something that can never be rewritten, no matter how hard we try to act like it didn't happen.
There have been many books, movies, even stories passed down from survivors and family that show us the brutality of the Holocaust. In middle school I read a play version of Anne Frank's diary that made me second guess reading her actual diary. In high school I watched Schindler's List, which opened my eyes to a bigger part of the Holocaust and the torturous truths of what happened. This past semester in college I read The Book Thief, which consisted of a very unique perspective on this event.
We can learn so much from all these stories and all the facts, but it's how we react to this that allows us to fully understand what happened. When I was younger, I was more naive and unaware of what happens around me so I reacted sullenly to Anne Frank's story while my teacher sobbed at the horrors of what happened. With a better understanding that the Nazis really believed they were doing the right thing and tortured the Jews, Schindler's List made me cry and watch with my mouth hanging open at what was potentially the lives of those my age, younger or older. No one could survive and yet there were few who were lucky.
I see now, that my heart aches and my blood boils knowing what people did to each other back then because of what they believed and who they believed in. At this moment I curse the world for being idiotic and prideful, trying to overtake someone and destroy lives. We go to wars and create more death and destruction, don't take me in the wrong way, I value what our troops do every day and admire them for doing what I'm to cowardice to do. In fact, I have had many friends and peers who have enlisted and I pray for them every night for their safe return.
It's hard to imagine that maybe in the future my kids or my grand kids will be learning in school about the devastation that was 9/11; they'll be taught that because of such a high-level terrorist attack we declared war and were at war for so long. They'll learn about Bid Laden and racial discrimination and the paranoia that we Americans created for ourselves thinking if I participate in a marathon, I may be blown up, or I'd really prefer not to fly because what if someone hijacks the plane? What would I do? and sadly even should I risk going to the movies today? We live in fear, but maybe our kids and our kids kids wont. Maybe, they'll look down on us and say what I'm saying, that what happened was horrendous and should never happen again all because we so desperately believed we can make peace with the world through violence and pride. "History in the making." We think we're doing something right, but they may think we did something wrong. We can never be too sure.
And that's why I end this post with this: for what happened then and for what happens now, we should take a chance to step into some else's shoes and not hide in the shadows that is our past. Let's not repeat history.
