More about the Holocaust Presentation
Seeing that presentation on mapping the Holocaust affected me more than I realized. There was a point during the presentation when I was feeling uncomfortable enough to think about leaving. I didn't because it felt like I was overreacting. The discomfort I was feeling was difficult to pin down, and I didn't want to look like I wasn't appreciating the talk, and the work she was doing is amazing and powerful, and it's important that these things be shared.
I was feeling a delayed reaction I think. It's a bit like a delayed response I had to someone (unintentionally for what that's worth) saying something deeply personally hurtful to me at a social event. I didn't realize how emotional I was at the time because it made me kind of numb.
I've been pretty stressed in general lately, so that doesn't help. But when I started talking to Danae about it last evening on Skype, I realized how upset I was and how difficult it is to deal with thinking about these things. I vividly remembered a picture from the talk and it seemed more powerful than before. I was less numb, or more vulnerable while talking to someone I care about. Especially when that person is ethnically Jewish. And maybe that's another part of why it affected me more; it felt more personal. Maybe part was the viciously explanatory visualizations, presenting this topic in new and more integrated ways. Maybe it's just a different me at a different time in my life with different experiences than the last time I thought seriously about Nazi genocide.
Talking about it, I realized that I was sad and angry. And the anger spilled over a bit, in retrospect, into stronger feelings about other things I was looking at yesterday. The 1940s Miami city directories that listed "white residents" separately from "colored residents," for instance. I happened to see "white residents" at the head a page and got upset. The 1940s. That wasn't that long ago. I asked myself what the hell was wrong with people that they didn't see this?
That picture from the presentation wasn't of something graphic and violent. It was just two columns of people, one of men, one of women and children, lined up in front of the train they'd just disembarked from. The guards at the front, Professor Knowles noted, were sending them one way or another. To barracks and the labor camps, or to death in the gas chambers. But without that context, it's such an innocent image. People in line to stamp their passports or buy tickets. I'm more and more glad that she and her group are doing this work. People need to see the fruits of racism and rampant nationalism, as hard is it is to confront head-on.
I was feeling a delayed reaction I think. It's a bit like a delayed response I had to someone (unintentionally for what that's worth) saying something deeply personally hurtful to me at a social event. I didn't realize how emotional I was at the time because it made me kind of numb.
I've been pretty stressed in general lately, so that doesn't help. But when I started talking to Danae about it last evening on Skype, I realized how upset I was and how difficult it is to deal with thinking about these things. I vividly remembered a picture from the talk and it seemed more powerful than before. I was less numb, or more vulnerable while talking to someone I care about. Especially when that person is ethnically Jewish. And maybe that's another part of why it affected me more; it felt more personal. Maybe part was the viciously explanatory visualizations, presenting this topic in new and more integrated ways. Maybe it's just a different me at a different time in my life with different experiences than the last time I thought seriously about Nazi genocide.
Talking about it, I realized that I was sad and angry. And the anger spilled over a bit, in retrospect, into stronger feelings about other things I was looking at yesterday. The 1940s Miami city directories that listed "white residents" separately from "colored residents," for instance. I happened to see "white residents" at the head a page and got upset. The 1940s. That wasn't that long ago. I asked myself what the hell was wrong with people that they didn't see this?
That picture from the presentation wasn't of something graphic and violent. It was just two columns of people, one of men, one of women and children, lined up in front of the train they'd just disembarked from. The guards at the front, Professor Knowles noted, were sending them one way or another. To barracks and the labor camps, or to death in the gas chambers. But without that context, it's such an innocent image. People in line to stamp their passports or buy tickets. I'm more and more glad that she and her group are doing this work. People need to see the fruits of racism and rampant nationalism, as hard is it is to confront head-on.
