bystanding

i have just come home from a genocide class that has really shaken me up. we were each given a little slip of paper with a child's photo and name on it, and told that this was the depiction of a boy or girl who died in the Holocaust. according to numbers written on the back of the photo, we were asked to write a letter to our child, from the perspective of a. their mother, b. a nazi soldier, c. a german bystander, or d. an american bystander. after ten minutes of writing, we were invited to share with the class.

many of the letters written from the perspective of 'mother' seemed really disingenuous, with expressions like 'my sweet' and 'baby girl' tossed in thoughtlessly. many of the 'nazi's failed to actually put themselves in the shoes of the perpetrators. and many of the bystanders didn't justify their inaction. but three letters really caught me by surprise with their depth of understanding and sincerity. as they were read, i felt myself turn cold and clammy, my heart sped and slowed, and i had to consciously remember to keep breathing. the first was a letter from a mother. the third was a letter from a father. both of these were potently and honestly written. the second was a letter from an american bystander. this one moved me completely and for the first time since i began these studies, i cried.

this phenomenon i like to call apathy is what consistently moves me through my efforts to educate and rally people. i vividly remember a line from "hotel rwanda" about the american public watching the news about the genocide and then turning off their televisions and going back to their dinners. this too, one of the few scenes in the film that shook me so, brought me to tears. there is an excellent line from a dr. seuss book that i have taken to writing all over the place..."unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. it's not."

apathy is so easy. we can easily distance ourselves from other people by thinking "we are not alike." we don't have to sympthize or empathize or imagine ourselves in lives or situations much outside of our own experiences. but as i grow up, i'm realizing that we are all more alike than we are different. religion doesn't matter. skin colour doesn't matter. money doesn't matter. gender doesn't matter. age doesn't matter. being alive to the world makes us the same and therefore responsible for and to one another.