Day at the MOT

Thirty-one days of no Facebook. Got few messages, photo tags, group invitations during this internet sabbatical. It went by fast. May go again. At times, I would find myself automatically typing the "Facebook" web page once I launch my browser. Trained myself to be addicted to this website. I wanted to post some pictures of places visited. Other times, I wanted to get updated with the going on with family and friends. Nothing has really changed in my world since then beginning of the year. Guess I am long longing to be part of a community again.

Don’t know where this comes from, but it has. We all need to feel connected, to be part of something bigger. Yesterday, went to the Museum of Tolerance (MOT) with Sharmaine and her brothers. It was an event. Listened to a Holocaust survivor speak. Shook her hand actually. Wanted to make tactile connection with a real survivor in a dark, dark , dark time in history. Listening and watching her was nice, shaking her hand made it more real. She spoke for 45 minutes straight and I was enthralled. Her story started so innocently and to hear the decline of society happen so quickly, it bothered me.

Before entering the lecture, we stopped by some the interactive internet stuff. Looking up some of the texts, websites, and blogs out there in the world is disturbing to realize such entities still exist. Don’t want to say there is some ugliness in the world because putting it out there may draw some unwanted attention. Really don’t want some of that darkness in my head. The images are truly disturbing. How people can do such stuff to one another?

No one is really clean nor innocent. Admittedly, I was ignorant and I've and acted stupidly before. Trying to break this habit. No, I am not claiming to have found the light. All I am saying is that I am not so quick to label. Can’t speak for others because I don't walk in their shoes. Sitting on the cold concrete stone seats in the mock gas chamber made me feel ill. Looking up at the shower head wondering how people felt. Cold water or poison gas?  People like you and me being exterminated for some misguided belief system.

People have turned a blind eye when injustice and wrongdoing stares them in the face. I think of Kitty Genovese. I think of Zimbardo social psychology experiment. When I imagine being a subject of Milgram’s shock experiment, I am troubled how easy it is for people to lose sight at that the person across from them is part of the same species. Imagine the last time you were at a stoplight when there is a homeless person with cardboard sign asking for money.

Not all of us are created equal. There are obvious and various levels of talents, skills, motivations, and luck each of us possess. Not all of us can dunk. Not all of will be an astrophysicist nor will win a Nobel Peace prize. Not all of us will be President, but to forget that one next to them is not a human being. It is simply awful. Been more and more troubled of the scape-goating tactics of what is wrong in the world. Lately it has been the illegal immigrants that is ruining the country. Before the Chinese and Japanese. Before it was the Jews. Before that it was the Indians. The list goes on.

Found myself distraught by a kid sitting in front of us. He was young kid, maybe 9 or 10. He had the body of thirteen or fourteen year old. We were sitting in a lecture hall listening to the Holocaust survivor tell her story of Auschwitz. She told of how she can remember the smell of the smoke of the crematorium. Her mother and grandmother were sent there days before. The little big boy was fidgeting all around, constantly asking her mom when were they were leaving. He would make a squealing sound like a pig, begging for attention. He would run his hand of her mom’s hair. It reminded me of the flies walking on the faces of children that are starved in some third world country. It is bothersome, but they let it pass. I know she was ignoring him, not giving him the attention he wanted so. She was practiced not to encourage poor behavior. She was much better at it then I would be. Every so often his whispers would drown out what the speaker was saying. Admittedly I want to smack the kid and tell him listen and pay attention.

Then I realized that one of the kids sitting in the row, my relative, with us was playing with his Game boy while she was speaking. This, too, bothered me beyond belief. You see. Earlier he was so adamant about going to the Holocaust exhibit down stairs and getting some kind of plastic card. It was like going on a ride at Disneyland. Now we are here listening to an actual survivor of the dark time, it was a bit infuriating. Playing a game while this was going on. Made me shake my head.

I was learning the meaning of patience. Sometimes we need to put the fear of God to make an impression of some people. We need to effect an emotional response in order make people remember to make an honest impact. Still, I remained silent. A bit disappointed. Decided to use a the honey approach versus the vinegar one. 

I, too, was blind and ignorant. The folly of youth to be not so vested. He does not know nor has he seen such ugliness that people can and have done to others. Listening to the speaker and watching him play the Game boy. In many ways, I hope he never sees what this lady has seen. I hope in many ways that the greatest worry is finding a girlfriend and getting to the next level of that video game. I rather have him suffer these minor setbacks then deal with the horrors of the speaker. When is the next time you will eat? Will you survive through the winter night? Will the search dogs find him and attack him?

I can only wish that the impact of visiting the MOT will have an impact on his life. Hope he never learns the hard lessons of life these other people have faced. Still, there is Hope. “There is always Hope when people remember.” These were the words in green neon lights that were on the walls of the mock gas chamber.

For me, I will remember. I hope he does, too. If the lady in front of me can survive the atrocities, then many others can, too. George Santayana said it this way, “ Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” If we can remember these hard learned lessons, then maybe. . .