I attribute Elie Wiesel to developing my interest in studying the Holocaust. My grandparents’ stories gave me the passion to continue my studies, but it was Wiesel, the most famous holocaust survivor, with his book, Night, that exposed me to the true horrors experienced in concentration camps. Although it took Elie over ten years to find the courage to write about his experiences, his 160-page novel is one of the most visual, articulate, passionate and emotional writing by a Holocaust survivor that I have ever read. His grasp of the English-language at speaking engagements and advocacy events, as the original novel was written in Yiddish and translated into English, exuded grace and composure, whilst inspiring audiences to act against injustice. He joins the ranks of my grandparents and parents as one of my character and professional heroes. 

I first read Night in 10th grade English class. Fast forward 5 years, I find myself at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, where this remarkable man was once confined. I joined the Archives Department, and the first survivor story I was to transcribe was an interview with Elie Wiesel in the 1980’s. Here, he remarked that “the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.” These words continue to inspire me everyday and I intend to dedicate my career to the fight against indifference. 

As the indirect driver of my interest in the Holocaust, it is only fitting that one of the last programs of my tenure at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum was the Elie Wiesel Memorial Event. With speakers and performers, including Nancy Pelosi and Samantha Powers, the memorial was awe-inspiring and I am grateful to be one of the few able to attend. I even made an appearance in the event photography:

Yeah that blurry face in the background eating as much free, elegant, catered food as possible, is me

Elie Wiesel, the founding chairman of USHMM, intended this museum to be a “living memorial” to all that visit. The institution’s mission is to educate visitors on the Holocaust and the importance it still carries with genocides and mass atrocities continuing to occur around the globe. His message and passions surround this institution, and I cannot help but wonder where this museum would be without his leadership.

I cannot pretend that I had the honor of actually knowing this man; my admiration is based on his presentation of character in the public eye. I am not implying that Wiesel differed in his private life, I am only pointing that my loss of a hero and role model, is slim compared to the loss of a husband, father and grandfather. 

With the end of my sixth month co-op experience coming to a close this week, I continue to be motivated by this voice of a generation. Truthfully, I cannot even begin to process the completion of this co-op; this post in itself has taken weeks to write. I desperately want to find the words that would bring justice to these equally awe-inspiring institutions without overdramatizing history nor under-appreciating my experiences. 

The best way I can quantify my takeaways from this co-op is analyzing the development of my own Holocaust story. When I think about the Holocaust, I see atrocity imagery, power-hungry perpetrators, helpless victims, large statistics and ominous “prisons.” I also see the town of Oswiecim, co-workers in the Research Department, my new friends from all over the world, contemporary academics I interviewed, survivors that shared their stories. I see a Museum dedicated to combatting genocide, that also taught me about the field of marketing. I see Germany and Poland, but also Armenia, Rwanda, Cambodia, Darfur, Burundi and Syria. Beyond that, I see myself and the voices of my generation motivated by the lessons of the Holocaust and the never-ending fight against genocide and mass atrocities. 

One year ago, when this idea was only an idea, I recall my family and friends inquiring about my reasoning for wanting to spend sixth months with such a dark topic. Now, as I stop pinching myself and contemplate the co-op that took the help of so many to create, I face the question of “what next?” What will come out of these positions in terms of my academic and personal paths? Do I continue to study the Holocaust or take a step back and look at atrocity prevention as a potential field? I am unconcerned with my lack of answers to these questions. I cannot worry about where I will be in five or ten years, as I am more concerned where the world will be. What human rights issues will catapult into the public eye? What victimized groups around the globe require the most assistance and how should the international community respond? I am leaving my co-op with these questions.

If there is one thing I learned throughout the past sixth months, it is that history rarely remains historical. In the entrance to Block 5 of the Auschwitz stands a quote from George Santayana that will forever be engrained in my brain from the first time I visited this Museum. These words are applicable to every past and future generation and, with its application, could provide peace to the violence that ceases to end in modern society:

 Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Giving Thanks

This past holiday weekend involved proclamations of thanks and the creation of family memories. I am lucky enough to come from two very different families with unique histories and cultures. Sitting around the Thanksgiving dinner table, surrounded by paternal and maternal bloodlines, I was reminded of the ancestral influences that sparked my interest in studying the Holocaust and, eventually, creating my own co-op.

My mom, born on an Air Force base in Germany, grew up in a rather conservative Catholic family with five older siblings and a Colonel patriarch. My grandfather fought in World War II on the American side, despite having German roots. 

My dad, born in New Jersey, grew up in a Jewish household with one younger sister. My grandmother divorced my biological grandfather, won enough money on Jeopardy (yes, the game show) to move my father and aunt, and begin raising them as a single mother. Yeah, my grandmother was pretty cool. Her parents, my great-grandparents, immigrated to the United States prior to World War I, sensing that Poland would no longer be a safe place for Jewish people. Despite foreseeing the dangers of being a Jew in small-town Poland, my great-grandparents were the only ones from their family able to escape. The rest of my great-uncles and great-aunts presumably suffered the same fate as millions of other Polish Jews during the time.

My step-grandfather (on my father's side), whom I knew only as my grandfather despite having no biological relationship to me, also belonged to the armed forces and fought in the American army during World War II. As previously mentioned, this position deployed him to France, where he helped to liberate a concentration camp and re-connect a French Jew with his father.

My Polish-German, Catholic-Jewish ancestry had a variety of experiences during World War II and the Holocaust. That multi-dimensional background is what initially sparked my interest in the Holocaust. I interviewed my paternal grandmother for an 8th grade project about the subject. Her experiences as a woman on the home front, made me interested to learn more about my other grandparents' experiences during this time period. The topic continued to follow me as I began my studies in Sociology and chose to participate in a Dialogue of Civilization that followed the Hitler's rise to power. 

As one of the youngest workers by far at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, I fear that the endangerment of older generations will diminish interest in Holocaust and Genocide studies. Crime and violence gathers much more interest when a party is personally affected, hence why the majority of the employees at the Auschwitz Museum and USHMM are from one of the Nazi-targeted groups. I have my own ancestral biases that brought me to the topic, so I am unsure if I would have participated in the study abroad and subsequent co-op had I not had these influences. Older generations have a large influence on developing genocide prevention interest among the younger generations. The passing of elders, therefore, contributes to a diminishing interest in the topic. 

My Thanksgiving weekend involved the convergence of two sets of families, each with a distinctive 20th century history. I cannot help but be thankful for these family members. For the purposes of this blog, however, I want to highlight the particular gratefulness I hold towards my family's holocaustic histories. It also reminds me that others do not have similar histories and were not able to learn about World War II and the Holocaust from a primary source. It reminds me that there is diminishing interest in atrocity prevention and genocidal studies as the gap between the present and the past grows wider. In a contemporary world in which hate monopolizes communications between individuals, institutions and societies, my Thanksgiving dinner provided humbled delicacies with a slightly bittersweet aftertaste.

Wake-up Call

Whether you woke up Wednesday with excitement, fear, anger or hope, it is safe to say that all Americans have had an emotional couple of days. Wednesday also marks the end of a long, long election season that made blue voters bluer and red voters redder. Now, it doesn’t matter if your blue, red, somewhere in between or really confused, because America has voted and we continue on as a nation.

            Articles and op-eds flooded the media over the course of the past year and a half, almost breaking the internet on Wednesday morning. Passion floored American citizens to express all the emotions everyone experienced over the election season. We cried, we laughed, we cringed, we smiled – and now we are tired. From 8pm Tuesday night to 8am Wednesday morning, we rode a roller coaster and I, personally, am not getting back in line anytime soon.

            What seems to be forgotten, however, is that all these feelings were not just felt by Americans. The world watched as we held their fate in our hands; it is hard to remember how powerful of a player America is on the global stage. When I was in Poland, co-workers and strangers, upon learning of my citizenship, immediately inquired about my thoughts on Trump. Regardless of whether they know of Clinton, Kaine, Pence, Sanders, Rubio, Cruz or any of the other actors in this year’s election showcase, everyone knew of Trump. Less than 40,000 people populate Oświęcim, a town surrounded by rural land, and I am confident that the majority were aware of this controversial American election.

            I was fortunate enough to make some incredible international friends during my global co-op, two of whom followed the election results with us on Tuesday night. As I communicated with family and friends as state votes came in, I was also messaging friends in Germany and Austria. I voted for those I felt would represent my interests and do the most for my country. I thought of the future of myself, my loved ones and my nation – these three entities were with me behind the poll curtain. In the moment, however, the entire world was also present in the booth. The voting decisions we made on Tuesday affected the local, national and international political arenas. Talk about holding the weight of the world on your shoulders…

            Wednesday morning in D.C. normalized me. The same people boarded my marc train, workers rushed to the metro or into buildings with coffee cups and official briefcases in hand. The world woke up on Wednesday and went to work – just like every other day.

            I arrived early to the Museum to assist in the de-installation of an exhibition: I loaded and moved carts of shoes to be cleaned by the conservation department. This is not my first time working with the shoes of those who were gassed. In Auschwitz, on one of my first days, I sat down in a lab coat, meticulously vacuuming and cleaning crates and crates of victims’ shoes. To say the task was emotionally taxing is an understatement. This next encounter with the shoes, proved emotional in a different facet. As I pushed these carts down the modernized hallways of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, I confronted the reminder of what hate will do to a population. Every shoe represents a victim of the Holocaust and a victim of hate. Some, during the election season, drew parallels to the events and figures of World War II. I own opinions on this topic, but at the end of the day, this is not 1933. Similarities or not, the world is 71 years older than the Holocaust and, hopefully, 71 years wiser.

            Hate polarizes us, fractures systems, ends lives, eliminates societies. And hate caused the Holocaust. This election saw a lot of hate, from both sides. Voters held strong opinions about both candidates, and the “side” of one’s choosing potentially ended relationships. Hillary supporters refused to play in the sandbox with Trump voters, and vice versa. Sand was thrown, fights emerged, and hate erupted out of our mouths like lava. Hate divided us throughout this year, and if we further this polarization, hate will run this nation, and history taught us that hate isn’t a qualified leader.

            It no longer matters what you did in the booth on Tuesday. It no longer matters who you campaigned for throughout the primary and general elections. The next four years matter – and we mustn’t let hate determine its course. We owe future Americans and world citizens the opportunity to live peacefully with one another. Whether you like the new administration or not, we must work with one another to build our country up after such a long election.

            Hate cannot run a society. So grab your neighbor’s hand, and lets start the next four years.