Whose blood is more red?

The truth that makes men free is for the most part
the truth which men prefer not to hear.
--Herbert Agar, A Time for Greatness (1942)

When walking into the Holocaust museum my initial thoughts were actually quite simple. “You might get emotionally touched, but this was never your battle so it shouldn’t make you distraught.” I already knew at the back of my mind that not many people would be able to walk through the Holocaust museum and not be moved by something but I thought I would be the exception.

As the elevator doors opened and I entered the first of three floors the museum had to offer, I braced myself for a picture that would immediately put the entire holocaust into context. Almost as if it read my mind the first photograph I saw was of a group of German soldiers nonchalantly smiling and standing in front of a pile of burnt human carcasses. At that point I knew that this museum would be harder to get through than I thought.

As I progressed from photograph to photograph each one telling its own unique story the emotional baggage that each one carried was placed upon me. From the clear struggle etched in the faces of those confined in the concentration camp to the emotional pain of recorded voices of those who experienced the brutal incarceration. It all built upon each other sending me through an emotional ride of frustration, anger, loneliness, terror, joy, relief and other emotions all mixed in a smorgasbord that eventually ended in a feeling of contempt for the visit.

I didn’t want to be there any longer than I had to be. I had seen enough. I wasn’t near the point of breaking down; rather I was closer to the point of wanting to emotionally numb myself to it all. Block my senses as if I had taking a dose of novacaine. I found it easier to block the feelings the museum challenged me with than to accept the emotional challenge it brought. My trip throughout the various floors culminated with meeting back outside with the rest of the SAWIP group and an opportunity to let myself feel again. Take my mind off what I had just witnessed and allow my mind to be free of all those thoughts. As I cleared up my mind a single thought kept recurring and almost as if it was stuck on repeat.

I kept telling myself how none of what I just saw made any sense to me. It just didn’t. Whether you try to rationalize it, logically justify it, interpret it in any other way it would still not make sense to me. The systematic eradication of not only the Jewish population of Europe but of all others who were “different” from what was considered the perfect race is something that doesn’t make sense to me.

Whose blood is more red between a Jew and Gentile, Christian and Muslim, Israeli and Palestinian, South African and Nigerian? Whose blood is more red between you and the woman standing next to you in the train? The killing and destruction of those who are different from you simply based on their physical appearance but whose heart beats to the same rhythm as your own remains to me as something that doesn’t make sense.

As we discussed as a group what we had experienced in the museum I felt a group wide reflection on their own humanity and that of the people on our own planet. When faced with the question of what would you do if you were a Nazi German, one is forced to raise the question of their own humanity and is forced to deal with their own morality?

We talk about how the world refuses to see something such as the Holocaust ever again yet we as the world fail to stop history from repeating itself. Death and destruction seem to follow those who search for a Darwinian response to the nature of humans.

I was recently asked why I see myself as black and not firstly as a human. Does the idea of me being black mean that I am different from a white person? Does my difference leave me better or worse off. The world needs us to see each other more as humans who have acknowledged their capacity of creating mass destruction but have chosen to be even more capable of creating a world for all to live in without fear or prejudiced. It is in a human’s ability to acknowledge the truth of our capacity to kill where we will find the power to speak out to such an act.

I was moved by the Holocaust museum. I was made to see the truth of what might happen in any society if we remain silent and complacent. Trying to make sense of what doesn’t make sense is a head bashing exercise but one filled with immense personal reward and gain when a solution is found. I was emotionally defeated into numbness by the Museum but renewed in my vigor to help restore and sustain the humanity of our planet.

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