I Walked Away Furious from an Auschwitz Exhibit: Here’s Why
On June 26, my mother—the daughter of Eta Wrobel, a partisan fighter in the Holocaust—took me to the Auschwitz exhibit at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Manhattan. While many people who visit Holocaust museums and memorials leave feeling sad or moved, I walked away deeply furious.
The museum was full of artifacts from Auschwitz, photos of prisoners, and videos of survivors, all with accompanying descriptions. Many of the videos featured survivors who felt not just an urge, but a need to use their voices to ensure this type of inhumane and cruel treatment never happens again. As I heard their stories, all I could think about were the Jews that I have encountered who are anti-immigrant, pro detention center. The thought flooded me with anger.
3 comments on “I Walked Away Furious from an Auschwitz Exhibit: Here’s Why”
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I wholeheartedly support your outrage at the flagrant hypocrisy and selfishness of Jewish people who claim to want the holocaust to be remembered yet at the same time condone the atrocious way our government is treating desperate people feeling violence and death in their home countries. Jewish people who see nothing wrong with this are a betrayal to their cultural and religious background. At the same time, it is important to keep the memory of what happened at Auschwitz alive as a warning to future generations and as a reminder of what that even industrialized, educated societies can look away from human suffering or condone it. I still would not call the migrant crisis a Holocaust. There has been and will continue to be human suffering and to compare every situation to the Holocaust is unnecessary. It amounts to a disservice to the cause of tbe individuals who have suffered since each event stands alone in it’s own right. I do not need to compare the way this country is betraying one of its reasons for being as a land of freedom and opportunity to the Holocaust in order to be outraged by what is happening at the border.
Another irony is that during Obama’s administration some reich wing commentators tried to stir their followers up by claiming that Obama was going to put them in FEMA camps. It is almost as if God is showing extreme contempt for Americans by giving us such obvious, inept, and buffoonish challengers to our human decency.
Great article. It’s right for Jews to talk about the suffering of others. I’m a conservative so let me note something and many of us are offended by the suffering and treatment of immigrants. We recognize that many Democrats would rather let this suffering be publicized than work towards bi-partisan solutions.
Consider this solution. People should be able to come here, but not enjoy governmental benefits. In the 1890’s Jews, then Italians and others came to Ellis Island but there was no pot of free benefits. Indeed Jews in 1937-40 would have welcomed the opportunity to work.