Never again

Oh dear God! Came across a video from RTÉ’s ”The Late Late show”. (It is an Irish show which started in 1962, and is still running.) I used to watch it while living in Ireland… Well in this particular video U2 is paying a tribute to The Dubliners, by singing a song called Springhill disaster. An amazing song and Bono signs it with passion and engagement.

I heard something today which stuck with me. It was these words; the truth can never be forgotten… I don’t know why this hit me, but it did. Of course he who spoke them was talking about the Holocaust. It isn’t difficult to put those words together with what happened back then, but for me they represented something personal too. They spoke to me; they got me by the core somehow. I wanted to cry. But then, that might have been because Elie Wiesel speaks in such a way that you can’t help but becoming involved and affected.

For as long as I can remember I have been totally preoccupied by the horrors of WW2. Sometimes I feel like an idiot for reading, talking and thinking so much about it. Does that make me a bit like a sensationalist? But now that we learn that more and more, ignorant if you ask me, people deny Holocaust, I know that my interest and obsession won’t be futile. Why? Because I can read, listen, learn and educate myself on the subject. Like that I can do my best to pass on the knowledge, the awareness, the “never again” legacy…

The terrors of the 1930’s and 40’s, are still just as important and relevant now. Genocides are still happening. More importantly is the fact that they are still happening with us, the people, watching it on the news, seeing children, women and men dead. We shake our heads in disbelief thinking; oh the leaders in those countries, aren’t they just corrupt bastards? We see the innocence of children being destroyed, forcing them to grow up in seconds. How can we let this happen today? Aren’t we enlightened? Aren’t we compassionate? Maybe not enough? Perhaps we can’t see the truth for what it really is, as that would kill us. Do we have a selection in our brains that “protect” us from going insane? Perhaps if we were to put all the problems in the world, on our shoulders; it would be too much? I don’t know. Never again – strong words, words that people believed to be true and good 61 years ago, but somehow their meaning got lost on the way. It is time to bring them forward again.

If you don’t get what I am talking about, go to Auschwitz, and experience the still truth, the silent screams of innocence, the despair, the insanity, and also the hopes, go to Sachenshausen, learn, read, and watch. You can also listen to survivors telling their stories in The Shoah Foundation’s video archive. (50 000 survivors have told their story) Then you’ll understand.

Yes, that was me today. I can’t help it. Somehow this has always felt important to me. Close to home, to my heart, yet I don’t know anyone, personally, who was affected by the war in any “bad” way. For you who haven’t read about my experience when visiting Auschwitz, and want to, go to September 12th.

Was at Eva’s, and we watched something on TV that had me think about this today. It was nice to visit her! We both found out that it is very good for me that I have totally stopped thinking about him… That he never pops into my head like ten billion times a day, plus in my dreams at night. (As if)

Forgot to say that Ciara, my au-pair kid, beeped me on Msn yesterday evening. We talked for 1, 5 hours. It was lovely to talk to her. She said she missed and loved me. Aawwh… Ciara studies fine art in Dún Laoghaire, in the south of Dublin.

I think this is more than enough for now.

Monsoon :-)