ON LOSS & REMEMBERING

Giving thought to a sensitive and complex matter does not indicate a partisan position even though it might raise strong emotive responses. Asking questions and raising propositions might be seen to be alien to either cause and be disliked, but the strategy does lie at the heart of our modernity – an enquiring honesty, although this is being challenged by AI’s enthusiasm for clever, distracting fakes in all shapes and forms.

The question is: given the horrid trauma experienced by the Jews in what we now call the Holocaust, and given the reaction to this by the world that builds monuments and museums to express contrition and empathy, apparently in the hope that such horrors will never be repeated, ever, might one expect the Jewish race in particular to be especially caring and sensitive to such circumstances as those experienced by themselves, and go out of their way to never participate in or initiate such awful situations ever again? Might the Jewish experience set the example of what never to do?

Sadly, we see Israel respond with what looks like a brutal, careless approach to the Palestinians and other neighbours, seemingly ignoring those who seek a simple, quiet life, with what Israel argues is its right to respond to terror. This is not to condone terror – not at all; it is to ponder on the experience of ordinary, innocent, ‘everyday’ people being treated as nothing, nobodies; being told to move out to ‘safer’ places because of the intent to demolish towns and cities, only to be told again to move, and to move again into places that themselves finally turn out to be targets, all the while being denied the right to leave the country into neutral territory. One could liken the situation to the creation of a ghetto; or ethic cleansing.

It is difficult to comprehend how everyday life continues as the horror drags on knowingly – it is no quick hit - with a grim, enduring determination stirred by what appears to be a bitter hatred and a savage revenge that comes with the bold, considered threat that it will continue into other countries because the military blatantly boasts that it “knows how to do this.” One is left wondering if the Jews learnt nothing from their terrible experience other than how to implement such horror. Does no one ever think just once about the everyday lives of others; of ordinary men, women, and children, with their simple hopes and desires - shattered? Does anyone consider the humble proposition that ‘there, but for the grace of God, go I’? One wonders: if the world is going to be so responsive to the Jewish horrors experienced in the Holocaust, might it be similarly reactive to the experience of Israel’s neighbours?

Does anyone care?#

One approach might be to reconsider the Holocaust response and close the museums and monuments in protest, if lives are going to be managed similarly by those whose sufferings are being exposed in these exhibits, recalled and remembered; but one should not erase or modify history and its recognition or realisation. The response to the horrors is real and needs to be recorded; any attack on the museums and monuments would seem brutally childish: indeed, countries have laws that control how the Holocaust is treated, such is the effort of recognition and respect. So how does one respond to the Jewish approach to its neighbours that comes with statements by some, seeking their removal, eradication, with actions that appear to match these intentions even as the aim is denied?

The world should not be selective in its expressions of care and concern, and call out ‘never again’ only for one group of people. We need to recognise the new horrors in Gaza and Lebanon and demand ‘no more’ - but how? We are repeatedly told with a callous carelessness, that all the civilian deaths, including mothers and children of all ages, are as result of simple necessity; of an attack on legitimate, strategic targets – “It’s their fault” is the refrain - and the war continues along these same lines, again and again, all carefully planned by those whose relatives perhaps suffered in the Holocaust. One wonders: what do these people really think?

With history repeating itself, one response might be to do likewise with recognition, and add another layer to the Holocaust museums and monuments, one external, with a new, added expression of recognition and empathy on public display; the other internal, with displays of the experienced terror of the neighbours interspersed with that of the Jews.

The poignancy of the reality might be experienced, and display man’s continuing brutality to man, in what seems to be a futile attempt to stop it. The approach might at the very least cause one to reflect and cause more and more folk to say, ‘never me,’ and to mean it.

Given the Jewish/Palestinian horrors, why keep the sensitivity of Holocaust Museums singular, e.g. as those in Berlin define their purpose - ‘Jewish/Holocaust’? Why not recognise the sad mess we have, and add interventions to the museums and memorials to acknowledge the awful Palestinian situation? A new layer or form overlaid, with new exhibits mingled in amongst the others, revealing the schools and hospitals bombed; the children, the care workers, doctors, nurses, journalists, and the peacekeepers killed; all with the excuse that the military was aiming for a legitimate secret enemy hideout: who knows? One becomes so incensed over what looks like Jewish insensitivity that the first urge is to attack the memorials and museums, to deface them; blast them as Jews blast Gaza; but this is an irrational, raw, ill-considered, emotive response - awfully misguided; things will be more effective if managed carefully and thoughtfully; sensitively. Extremes only generate more of the same in a vicious cycle of retribution, whereas managed judgements hold their power and potency in art and architecture.

Consider the demolition of your city, your dwelling, your home, after being told by the dropped flyer, broadcast, text, or knock at the door, to move out by a foreign force because of its ambitions and intentions – just go. All hopes and dreams evaporate; memories are shattered, scattered; memorabilia and trinkets of remembrance are gone, other than those few things that can be gathered and transported; friends and family are dispersed. But where does one go? What does one do? One leaves as familiar homely comforts are transformed into a mass of rubble, leaving only the uncertainties of hardship and suffering, with the constant question: what might there be to return to: nothing?*

All of this constant trauma is planned and managed deliberately, knowing the impact on lives but apparently not caring, since the actions come with bold threats of the total demolition of places; the destruction of everything seemingly with the hope of no return? Refugees are left only with memories and sadness; a perpetual, nagging grief for lost people and places domineering the blind stare into the future from the hollow present: it is a true atrocity – “Bitterness will be there for life.”

We recognise the suffering of the Jews both now and in the past; that of the Palestinians needs our recognition and apology.

Guernica bombed.

The plan?:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1e82yy0wxno

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8xez14e7lro

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-19/gaza-death-toll-numbers-killed-israel-strikes-buried-body-parts/104259532?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8xez14e7lro

On loss of a home:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ceqnwl49v43o

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-15/old-adaminaby-snowy-hydro-scheme-75-years-on/104443272?future=true&

#

P.S.

On the Holocaust, the question has been asked: how did it all happen? Considering the events of today, the answer has to be: because we let it happen. There is much to be concerned about.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr54y0qplgvo

*

Peter Read Returning to nothing: the meaning of lost places, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1996.

26 OCTOBER 24

NOTE

Barry Lopez, Horizon, Vintage, London, 2019.

p.115

The physical harm humans are capable of inflicting on others – the ease with which people are baited into these lethal hostilities – has the look of something that will not quit.

p.127

I let my head drop to my chest and felt impotent compassion, the weight of the horror we force on one another in our manic quests for greater satisfaction.