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May. 1st, 2011 08:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamara_russoMy best friend hagar_972, she has a way with words. This is what she wrote about today.
*~*
Imagine the world ends at your grandparents.
You have siblings, parents; your parents have siblings, parents; your grandparents have children and grandchildren. There are no great-aunts and great-uncles. There are no childhood friends of your grandparents. No school friends, either.
The places where your grandparents grew up do not exist. They cannot be gone back to. There are precious few keepsakes, if at all. There are no or very little photos.
The world your grandparents have grown up in does not exist. The culture, the language, the community, the dress – all extinct. What little is left might as well be embalmed in glass and put in the museum. Some of it has been.
It doesn't stop with that.
There are buildings too old for you to have seen built, and buildings too old for your parents to have seen built, but there are no buildings too old for your grandparents to have seen built. The buildings are not the only thing that's younger than your grandparents: all the functions of your society are in no more than their third generation.
You are not going to understand that this is not the default state of things until you visit another country, and realize that there are things there that have been standing for centuries. You're not going to translate your grandparents' missing siblings into your missing great-aunts and great-uncles until the first time you run into the concept in a book or a tv show.
There are countries in the world with names like the ones your grandparents have come from but, you are told, these are not the same countries. Not the same people.
The world ends at your grandparents. If you've grown up in a world that's wider and older than that, then imagining this probably made you breathe differently for a moment, might have sent a shiver of horror or grief down your spine.
Ask yourself, now, what would it take to cause that much destruction?
I could quotes numbers and history, reference and link photos, documentaries, testimonies. I am not going to do that. The destruction is too massive, you see: it takes ritual to make it accessible. And – there has never been a time in my life when the image of the pile of the shoes of the murdered did not lurk at the edge of my consciousness: repeat a ritual enough, and it becomes a shell devoid of emotion, devoid of meaning. If the purpose is rememberance, a ritual might miss its purpose.
So instead, I offer this: Imagine a world that ends at your grandparents. Imagine that it's not just you and your family, but the entire society you live in. Imagine what could have possibly caused that, what would it take to cause that much destruction.
Today is Holocaust Memorial Day.
hagar_972, she has a way with words. This is what she wrote about today.*~*
Imagine the world ends at your grandparents.
You have siblings, parents; your parents have siblings, parents; your grandparents have children and grandchildren. There are no great-aunts and great-uncles. There are no childhood friends of your grandparents. No school friends, either.
The places where your grandparents grew up do not exist. They cannot be gone back to. There are precious few keepsakes, if at all. There are no or very little photos.
The world your grandparents have grown up in does not exist. The culture, the language, the community, the dress – all extinct. What little is left might as well be embalmed in glass and put in the museum. Some of it has been.
It doesn't stop with that.
There are buildings too old for you to have seen built, and buildings too old for your parents to have seen built, but there are no buildings too old for your grandparents to have seen built. The buildings are not the only thing that's younger than your grandparents: all the functions of your society are in no more than their third generation.
You are not going to understand that this is not the default state of things until you visit another country, and realize that there are things there that have been standing for centuries. You're not going to translate your grandparents' missing siblings into your missing great-aunts and great-uncles until the first time you run into the concept in a book or a tv show.
There are countries in the world with names like the ones your grandparents have come from but, you are told, these are not the same countries. Not the same people.
The world ends at your grandparents. If you've grown up in a world that's wider and older than that, then imagining this probably made you breathe differently for a moment, might have sent a shiver of horror or grief down your spine.
Ask yourself, now, what would it take to cause that much destruction?
I could quotes numbers and history, reference and link photos, documentaries, testimonies. I am not going to do that. The destruction is too massive, you see: it takes ritual to make it accessible. And – there has never been a time in my life when the image of the pile of the shoes of the murdered did not lurk at the edge of my consciousness: repeat a ritual enough, and it becomes a shell devoid of emotion, devoid of meaning. If the purpose is rememberance, a ritual might miss its purpose.
So instead, I offer this: Imagine a world that ends at your grandparents. Imagine that it's not just you and your family, but the entire society you live in. Imagine what could have possibly caused that, what would it take to cause that much destruction.
Today is Holocaust Memorial Day.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-01 08:58 pm (UTC)