Humanities & Classics 1002
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Renaissance Forum
Humanities & Classics 1002 |
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This is a personal experience of my own that relates to some of the things that we have been discussing regarding the colonization of America. It may seem at first to have nothing to do with anything at all, but if you read to the end, I'll try and make it come together.
Last year around Christmas time, I was in Munich, Germany. A friend that I was traveling with and I decided to go to Dachau, formerly a concentration camp for the day. I wasn't prepared at all for what it would be like to go there. It was really, extremely creepy. As soon as we entered the fenced in area that surrounded the camp, the temperature dropped about 15 degrees. It is hard to describe, but I definitely wasn't prepared for the feeling of desolation and absolute frigidness that chilled every part of yourself. I realize that this was psychological, but it was still very, very powerful. My friend and I then went into the Holocaust museum and proceeded to engross ourselves in the various documents and pictures and maps and other things that they had there. It was intense to say the least. The museum gives you a detailed outline of every aspects of concentration camps. There aren't really words to describe what this was like. There was one photo that was particularily disturbing for some reason. If anyone has seen Dear Finder, you might remember it. It's a photo of a huge pile of shoes that was taken at Auschwitz. The shoes belong to the victims of the holocaust. I'm not sure why this picture made such a big impact, but I cried when I saw it. I think it's because the Nazi's valued those people's shoes more than they valued the lives of those innocent people.
After we looked at everything and watched a 45 minute documentary, we went outside to walk around. Being inside the museum and watching the documentary was thought-provoking, to say the least. I have seen and read countless things about the holocaust, but this was the first time that it became a real thing to me.
As we walked around we talked about what we had seen. We talked about how hard it was for us to imagine that human beings could have done that to other human beings. This is the part that pertains to class. I said to my friend, "When you think about it, it's not too far from the persecution of Native Americans that happened when Europe was colonizing America." This sparked a very interesting discussion about how your culture influences your view of history. Granted, a lot of the death that occured during colonization was related to diseases such as small pox. However, the colonists did their fair share of genocide and enslaving the natives. Maybe it is because of the diseases, or because the killing happened over a longer period of time, but I don't think that many people attach the same kind of horror to colonists persecution of American Indians as they do to the Holocaust. Maybe it is because the documentation of death is nowhere near to what they have compiled on the holocaust. I don't know. I know that some people may be terribly offended by the parallel that I have drawn and I am prepared for that. It is not a pleasant thought at all. My question is though, why are you offended? Is it because the two events are completely different and there is no truth to the comparison, or is it because of the way that history portrays the events? When I went to see Dear Finder, I realized that I was not alone in thinking these kind of thoughts. The end of the play is very emotional. Each character gives a modern example of how persecution, similar to that in the holocaust, has happened throughout history and continues to happen to the present day.
Someone mentioned that we are too harsh on our ancestors and we have to realize that they were doing what they believed to be the right thing. If people are continuing to commit these sort of acts have we really learned what is the "right thing"? The point this person made was excellent, it is easy to look back at history and be appalled by the terrible things that happened. The real challenge is to examine how this applies to our modern world.