When it comes to history, I think of myself as pretty open minded and aware. I minored in history in university and continue to research and read history in my spare time. I believe connections with the past help us understand what is happening today or at least how we got to where we are. In October I had a moment of historical awareness that actually shocked me. I am not naive to deny the Holocaust of World War II. I have been to two concentration camps here in Europe, seen memorials in towns, read The Dirary of Anne Frank, and list goes on. But for me the Holocaust was something that happened in France or in other parts of Germany, or in Eastern Europe.
In October an article in the local German newspaper caught my eye. English 8 was reading the play of Anne Frank and the teacher and I had been discussing a possible field trip to the rebuilt synagogue in Lorrach, a city near us. The synagogue was destroyed on Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass) in Nov. 1938 and hadn't been rebuilt since then. The restoration project was completed at the start of 2010.
The picture caught my eye first - a large picture of SS troops herding people onto trucks.
I got out my German dictionary and struggled through parts of the article which was discussing a photography exhibit at Lorrach's history museum. The article was entitled "In Front of Everyone's Eyes." The exhibit is the first showing of a series of photographs found by chance in the archives in Lorrach. A box of negatives was found and a history student at the University of Freiburg developed them and then researched them. They show the Jews of Lorrach being rounded up - frame by frame - and deported to a concentration camp in southwest France and later on to Auschwitz in Poland. Lorrach is right on the border of Germany and Switzerland. It actually blends into a Swiss city. There were Jewish families in Lorrach who had relatives living just a block away in Switzerland, who were not deported because they lived in a neutral country.
The English 8 teacher, the middle school history teacher, and I went to a special exhibit one night in October to see the photographs. We thought it was just an open gallery event but it turned out to be a very formal ceremony with the local Rabbis there to give prayers and with representatives of various Jewish organizations there to give their support of this exhibit, which hopes to bring to awareness and memory those who were deported one day not so long ago.
History is fighting a battle to stay relevant with an impatient and modern generation. It is exhibits like this that remind me that we can't give in to the modern trend to look only at today and ignore the past.
