10
Wednesday, August 14, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
EXCLUSION: Words
can have terrifying
impact on actions
Continued from page 8
involve seeking a greater
sense of stability, acceptance,
importance, or security. If we
are lucky, we may move for
simply aesthetic reasons 4
wanting more space, more
modernity, more grandeur.
Yet much of humanity moves
out of necessity 4 perhaps
for financial reasons or evic-
tion, but also for safety and
survival.
My maternal grandmother
was born in Warsaw, Poland.
Her father was a physician and
professor at the local univer-
sity while her mother stayed at
home. She was raised Roman
Catholic, was afforded a top-
notch education, enjoyed the
arts, and travelled often.
On September 1, 1939, the
Nazis invaded Poland. My
grandmother was 15. While
not Jewish, she and her par-
ents were targeted as <intel-
lectuals.= She was relegated to
the Warsaw Ghetto, then sep-
arated from her parents who
were never seen again. Then,
given her vitality, she was
chosen for forced labor rather
than execution. While details
remain a bit of a mystery,
my grandmother escaped the
forced-labor camp, but while
working for the underground
in France, she was captured
again by the Germans and
imprisoned in Frankfurt for
two years until the end of the
war when she was finally lib-
erated. There was not much
left for her at home in Poland,
and so my grandmother who
spoke no English (despite
speaking at least four other
languages), made the journey
to Ellis Island along with so
many others seeking some-
thing better and the promise
of Lady Liberty.
Somehow, out of such hor-
ror, my grandmother managed
to make a life for herself in
the United States. She mar-
ried, had two children, settled
in Long Island in comfortable
suburbia, and later retired to
a gated community in Palm
Beach, Florida. Despite her
unwavering resilience, it was
not always pretty. The stain of
the Holocaust brought night-
mares and flashbacks, memo-
ries that compelled a quest to
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numb or distract with alcohol,
pills, and risky behavior. Her
traumas became also her chil-
dren9s traumas and while her
reasons for absenteeism or
emotional distance as a parent
are understandable, they were
not without consequence. This
is one version of intergenera-
tional trauma.
Last week I enjoyed a brief
visit to New York. As I toured
the Auschwitz exhibition
at Manhattan9s Museum of
Jewish Heritage, I was struck
most by a photo of a German
family with young children 4
they are laughing and enjoy-
ing a swim in their backyard
only 400 feet from the cre-
matorium that in sharp con-
trast was burning thousands
of murdered bodies each day.
How is this possible?
Desperation loves a scape-
goat. After World War I,
Germany was hurting 4 and
hurting bad. The financial
situation left over a third of
the country unemployed and
grasping for hope or pur-
pose. Hitler9s vision not only
offered a way forward, but an
enemy that was much more
tangible and familiar than the
complexities of the country9s
crisis.
<The art of all truly great
national leaders at all times
consists in not dividing the
attention of a people, but in
concentrating it upon a single
foe.= 4 Adolf Hitler (1925)
One way to a sense of
pride is through unification
and another, through divi-
sion. Hitler did both. He uni-
fied the <Aryan race,= and
by convincing those lucky
enough to fit this descrip-
tion that they were superior,
he enhanced their perceived
pride even more by justifying
the ostracism and persecution
of millions. Germany quickly
became Europe9s super-
power, dominating economi-
cally and militarily. German
author Raimund Pretzel
(1928), describes the intoxi-
cating Nazi vision among the
German people:
<They are terribly happy,
but terribly demeaned; so self-
satisfied, but so boundlessly
loathsome; so proud and yet
so despicable and inhuman.
They think they are scaling
high mountains, when in real-
ity they are crawling through
a swamp.=
It is unsettling what we
can become accustomed to 4
what we quietly accept espe-
cially when we ourselves are
hurting. It can start small 4
perhaps with a suggestion or
slur at the family table, then
rhetoric spreads to groups,
then to public acceptance of
discrimination and segre-
gation, then to widespread
banishment and dehumaniza-
tion, then somehow to mass
genocide.
It is well known that being
excluded has deep emotional
consequences, but what do
we lose when we ourselves
are the aggressor of exclu-
sion? We often do so to seek
a sense of solidarity or signifi-
cance with other aggressors.
We want to belong 4 just as
every human does. Yet, the
method by which we are seek-
ing belonging involves hate,
denial, dehumanization, and
anger. This demands a signifi-
cant amount of energy, and
detachment.
And, quite frankly, anger
is toxic on the mind and the
body. The pain we inflict on
others becomes our path to
prosperity, and reconciling
this means we must create a
worldview in which causing
hurt is necessary. Ultimately,
we create a very rigid and
small world that must be
maintained in order for us to
have any sense of satisfac-
tion. Problem is, this rarely
happens, and we are often
confronted, albeit maybe only
on our deathbeds, with our
legacy.
I write this not to make
a political statement, but to
remind myself and perhaps
anybody who reads this that
the seeds of hate are often
apathy and desperation. It
takes courage to acknowledge
responsibility and look within
rather than seeking to blame
another. Furthermore, I am
reminded of the weight of our
words. As I left the museum,
I was challenged most by the
following from Auschwitz
survivor Simone Alizon:
<Our words are not your
words. Ramp does not equal
platform. Number does not
equal name. Segregation
or selection does not equal
choice. Barracks does not
equal building. And today
words have the power. And
it is also destructive. On the
Internet, in discussion, on
forums, in comments. In the
media, titles, captions. In the
groups of notions where the
people who are poor, cring-
ing, running away & are pre-
sented as people with germs
and diseases. In the language
of political debate, to dema-
gogy, in populism. In brutal
opinions of those who, sup-
posed to serve, want to lead.
The words of hatred poison
the imagination and stupefy
consciousness. Maybe this is
why so many remain silent
while confronted with evil.
The words of hatred create
hatred. The words of dehu-
manization dehumanize. The
words of menace increase
the threat. We have already
started paying for this. The
camp is not just a memory.
For the majority of us, its
reality is omnipresent in our
everyday life. I have never
heard a more terrible warning.
The warning against our own
words.=
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