Archive: Opinions

EditorialIt's hard to believe that 63 years after World War II that genocide and war are still going strong on our world.  I was brought up to believe we are civilized, but the evidence belies that.  I was told that we learn from our mistakes and thus become better people.  We have all seen that happen on an individual person basis.  That is why I am surprised, as we approach Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) this Saturday, that there aren't more well publicized yoms (days) to remember other genocides such as those taking place in Africa as I write this.  Apparently as a species we are as dumb as a post.

I remember when I was a kid my father warning us at the dinner table that what happened in Germany could happen here if conditions were right.  If people were complacent in times when things were not going well -- a recession, an unpopular war, high property taxes -- that one group could be singled out to take the blame.  And that could lead to laws changing to the detriment of that group, an increase in violence, and possibly the ultimate violence.  He even talked about moving to Australia, though in retrospect I am not sure whether he was serious about that.

We lived in a nice neighborhood with mostly nice people.  There wasn't a lot of strife in our well mown little piece of the world.  I can only remember being called a hateful, prejudicial name because of my religion one time, in high school.  But I never forgot that my father thought an incident like that could escalate into something like the Holocaust.

Not long ago my mother recounted the story of her grandmother walking from Latvia to Germany with her family as a little girl in the late 19th century, carrying everything they owned including bedding, clothing, and their prized samovar, a ceramic, multi-tiered tea pot that miraculously survived the trek.  The purpose was to escape persecution by Czar Alexander to catch a boat to America.  Which they did (or I wouldn't be here writing this).  Hearing this story I idealized it in a Fiddler On The Roofy kind of way.  Then I started thinking -- I run out of breath walking down my driveway to get the mail.  And I'm not carrying everything I own or running in fear.  That was no walk in the park.  I don't think my ancestors were humming show tunes on that long walk!

This week I attended Fred Voss's speech to Lansing High School sophomores for the third year.  Here is a guy who somehow lived through mankind's best known genocide, and has made it his mission to make sure that the new generation not only remember what happened in Germany in the 1930s and '40s, but that they learn from that colossal mistake.  He was approximately their age, a bit younger actually, when the Holocaust happened to him.  That means something, because I think it makes him connect to our kids when he describes the horrors he survived.  While he went on to live a happy and productive life, it was at the cost of losing his childhood, his friends, much of his family, his tangible belongings, and his country.

His country.  Can you imagine that happening to you?  Losing the United States because whatever religion you happen to be is suddenly ostracized and then attacked?

If you can't imagine it, or worse, if you don't try then you haven't learned from mankind's mistakes.  And that makes you part of the ongoing hate and genocide that is going on in our world as much as the complacence of German people in the 1940s gave Hitler the room he needed to pursue his heinous agenda.  Life is comparatively good in Lansing, and there is absolutely no reason why we all shouldn't enjoy it.  But if we take a few minutes from time to time to imagine the unimaginable, it may be all we need as a good first step toward keeping this life good for all of us.  One way is to talk to a kid who saw Voss's presentation Wednesday and ask them what they thought about it.  But in any event, imagining the unthinkable to prevent it from happening.

If we can do that, perhaps we are more civilized than I think.

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