![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meredithpThis wasn't what I intended to write about today, but it happened to ask to be written.
A friend of mine posted an article about the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and how the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum expects this to be the last decade anniversary with a visible presence of survivors. That seems likely; Reuters has shared a slideshow of survivors and most of them are in their 80s. 10 years from now, only a handful will be left, and it's unlikely those survivors still alive will have clear memories of the camps.
The slideshow, which is mostly of Warsaw Uprising survivors who were transported to Auschwitz, was hard for me to look at. I have never been to Europe, and I have not seen these milieux de memoire firsthand. My direct ancestors came to the US in 1904, and while there are rumors of more distant ones being affected by the Holocaust, I have nothing specific to research in depth. But I am Jewish - despite my last name and my atheism - and the Holocaust does have significance in my life.
When I was in my early teens, I cried watching the TV movie version of The Diary of Anne Frank. My mother couldn't understand why I was crying - I'd watched it many times before, what had changed? I told her it was the first time I realized that, without having any direct connection to the Holocaust, Anne Frank symbolized those more distant links I didn't have names for. I was crying for her, and for the cousins much-removed I didn't know.
Perhaps this is related to my interest in history. Perhaps I feel an emotional attachment to the past, and that's why I turned a cardboard box into a time machine when I was six. (Hey, if Calvin can have a transmogrifier...)
The more I think about it, the more likely it seems. I don't believe in reincarnation, so the idea that I like history because I was somebody in a past life doesn't bear out. I don't believe in a higher power, so I wasn't called to history. But I felt emotions keenly at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. I felt connected to and curious about the names on the DC WWI Memorial. I was haunted by a visit to the Jennie Wade House, home of the only civilian killed at the battle of Gettysburg. Yes, I think this may well be the source of my interest in history - that I feel it directly.
The funny thing is, only the Holocaust part asked me to write it here. The introspection just sort of...wrote itself, without my help. Interesting.
A friend of mine posted an article about the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and how the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum expects this to be the last decade anniversary with a visible presence of survivors. That seems likely; Reuters has shared a slideshow of survivors and most of them are in their 80s. 10 years from now, only a handful will be left, and it's unlikely those survivors still alive will have clear memories of the camps.
The slideshow, which is mostly of Warsaw Uprising survivors who were transported to Auschwitz, was hard for me to look at. I have never been to Europe, and I have not seen these milieux de memoire firsthand. My direct ancestors came to the US in 1904, and while there are rumors of more distant ones being affected by the Holocaust, I have nothing specific to research in depth. But I am Jewish - despite my last name and my atheism - and the Holocaust does have significance in my life.
When I was in my early teens, I cried watching the TV movie version of The Diary of Anne Frank. My mother couldn't understand why I was crying - I'd watched it many times before, what had changed? I told her it was the first time I realized that, without having any direct connection to the Holocaust, Anne Frank symbolized those more distant links I didn't have names for. I was crying for her, and for the cousins much-removed I didn't know.
Perhaps this is related to my interest in history. Perhaps I feel an emotional attachment to the past, and that's why I turned a cardboard box into a time machine when I was six. (Hey, if Calvin can have a transmogrifier...)
The more I think about it, the more likely it seems. I don't believe in reincarnation, so the idea that I like history because I was somebody in a past life doesn't bear out. I don't believe in a higher power, so I wasn't called to history. But I felt emotions keenly at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. I felt connected to and curious about the names on the DC WWI Memorial. I was haunted by a visit to the Jennie Wade House, home of the only civilian killed at the battle of Gettysburg. Yes, I think this may well be the source of my interest in history - that I feel it directly.
The funny thing is, only the Holocaust part asked me to write it here. The introspection just sort of...wrote itself, without my help. Interesting.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2015-01-26 06:50 am (UTC)(No, I didn't write that last as a hint -- I just realized you might take it that way after I reread what I wrote. But I'm not going to change it, either!)