Wow. That was really intense
Friday, October 21st, 2005 08:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizziecI'm sitting here feeling really overwhelmed right now and the reason is today's trip to the Imperial War Museum's Holocause Exhibition.
The day started out early (5am - I was barely aware there was such a time ;)) and was on a train by half six. Got to Waterloo, had breakfast and wandered to the museum, getting soaked in the process (socks have only just dried off). Went into the museum and our first session of the day dealing with teaching sensitive topics. It was suggested that we try things like brainstorms (how much do you know about the Holocaust etc) as a way in and also brainstorm words we would apply to the victims, rescuers and perpetrators, and then use photographic resorces to prove these ideas wrong: not all victims were weak, pathetic or passive, not all rescuers are saintly and not all perpatrators were evil and they certainly did not look their roles.
Let me put it this way. Does this man:
look like the architech of mass murder to you? (if you know who he is try to look at the picture dispassionately - here he looks like a "nice" family man.) The reality is really quite shocking.
There were 20 images or so of this type and most of the time the people were not in the roles our first glance would have assigned them. It seems like a really good starter activity to use with children :)
Then came lunch and after that we started our afternoon session with a workshop on using artefacts in our teaching.
The artefact our host brought out was a shoe. A tiny shoe. An old shoe (yes, you can probably guess where this is leading - I certainly could). He asked us what we could tell from the shoe. Well, it was an old shoe, so it probably belonged to someone 50 or 60 years ago. It was small, and we estimated that the child who wore it was perhaps 3 or 4. It had been well used so the family probably passed it down from child to child. It had been well made, so the family were probably concerned about appearences and certainly tried to kit their child out nicely. It was a boot, so it probably belonged to a boy.
Then he asked to to examine it more closely and we noticed that it had been repaired at the back, not by a shoe maker, not by a seamstress but by an amateur. And the brown shoe had been repaired with jade green thread in a cross stich manner. We came to the conclusion that the family were in impoverished circumstances and that the mother had repaired it with what she had.
Then came the kicker (and something I had suspected from the start). The shoe had been found in Auschwitz after liberation, in the part of the camp called Canada.
Suddenly an image of a scared little boy spending days in a cramped cattle waggon came to mind, of him arriving at his destination clutching his mother's hand. Of inmates telling his mother to pass him to an older lady so she could live...of him being sent to the gas chamber. Of someone (maybe his mother, perhaps she decided to stay with him) undressing him and tying his shoelaces together so they could find his shoes when they came out of the "shower"...of his death. All I can think, even now is "I hope he had his mother with him at the end..."
Harrowing :(
After that came the exhibition which I didn't find nearly as awful as the workshop. Some bits were horrid and made me very sombre, like letters from people on the way to the death camps, sent to their families, some written in Summer 1944 sounding optimistic because the war is nearly over!. Like a little girl's poem to her friend about a future that she never had the chance to have, and a life denied her. Like a real cattle truck that was used to transport victims around the Greater Reich.
The latter was done ingeniously. They had dismantled it so you waled under the roof and over the floor with the walls on either side. SOme people walked through without even realising what it was or that where they were walking hundreds of victims stood on the way to their final destination.
I have always felt that objects and places can have "echoes" of the people there before. I've never felt it so strongly as I did in that cattle truck.
Awe inspiring.
Anyway, the exhibition was good, but the artefact workshop was better for achieving the aim of making the holocaust more real to the student (or regular person).
I urge you to go see this exhibition.
It can't be described in words, though I have tried here.
Amazing.
Wow.
Shamelessly cross-posted to my other journal
The day started out early (5am - I was barely aware there was such a time ;)) and was on a train by half six. Got to Waterloo, had breakfast and wandered to the museum, getting soaked in the process (socks have only just dried off). Went into the museum and our first session of the day dealing with teaching sensitive topics. It was suggested that we try things like brainstorms (how much do you know about the Holocaust etc) as a way in and also brainstorm words we would apply to the victims, rescuers and perpetrators, and then use photographic resorces to prove these ideas wrong: not all victims were weak, pathetic or passive, not all rescuers are saintly and not all perpatrators were evil and they certainly did not look their roles.
Let me put it this way. Does this man:
look like the architech of mass murder to you? (if you know who he is try to look at the picture dispassionately - here he looks like a "nice" family man.) The reality is really quite shocking.
There were 20 images or so of this type and most of the time the people were not in the roles our first glance would have assigned them. It seems like a really good starter activity to use with children :)
Then came lunch and after that we started our afternoon session with a workshop on using artefacts in our teaching.
This story could be really distressing
The artefact our host brought out was a shoe. A tiny shoe. An old shoe (yes, you can probably guess where this is leading - I certainly could). He asked us what we could tell from the shoe. Well, it was an old shoe, so it probably belonged to someone 50 or 60 years ago. It was small, and we estimated that the child who wore it was perhaps 3 or 4. It had been well used so the family probably passed it down from child to child. It had been well made, so the family were probably concerned about appearences and certainly tried to kit their child out nicely. It was a boot, so it probably belonged to a boy.
Then he asked to to examine it more closely and we noticed that it had been repaired at the back, not by a shoe maker, not by a seamstress but by an amateur. And the brown shoe had been repaired with jade green thread in a cross stich manner. We came to the conclusion that the family were in impoverished circumstances and that the mother had repaired it with what she had.
Then came the kicker (and something I had suspected from the start). The shoe had been found in Auschwitz after liberation, in the part of the camp called Canada.
Suddenly an image of a scared little boy spending days in a cramped cattle waggon came to mind, of him arriving at his destination clutching his mother's hand. Of inmates telling his mother to pass him to an older lady so she could live...of him being sent to the gas chamber. Of someone (maybe his mother, perhaps she decided to stay with him) undressing him and tying his shoelaces together so they could find his shoes when they came out of the "shower"...of his death. All I can think, even now is "I hope he had his mother with him at the end..."
Harrowing :(
After that came the exhibition which I didn't find nearly as awful as the workshop. Some bits were horrid and made me very sombre, like letters from people on the way to the death camps, sent to their families, some written in Summer 1944 sounding optimistic because the war is nearly over!. Like a little girl's poem to her friend about a future that she never had the chance to have, and a life denied her. Like a real cattle truck that was used to transport victims around the Greater Reich.
The latter was done ingeniously. They had dismantled it so you waled under the roof and over the floor with the walls on either side. SOme people walked through without even realising what it was or that where they were walking hundreds of victims stood on the way to their final destination.
I have always felt that objects and places can have "echoes" of the people there before. I've never felt it so strongly as I did in that cattle truck.
Awe inspiring.
Anyway, the exhibition was good, but the artefact workshop was better for achieving the aim of making the holocaust more real to the student (or regular person).
I urge you to go see this exhibition.
It can't be described in words, though I have tried here.
Amazing.
Wow.
Shamelessly cross-posted to my other journal
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no subject
Date: Sat, Oct. 22nd, 2005 08:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Sat, Oct. 22nd, 2005 08:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Sun, Oct. 23rd, 2005 09:22 pm (UTC)Part of the reason I do modules on Jewish Perspectives on the Holocaust, Christian-Jewish Relations and Representations of the Holocaust is to learn about all the issues involved.
One thing you learn so much about is the politicisation of representation. So, *so* complex. Survivor perspectives really are invaluable - Elie Wiesel's Night is the standard readable-in-2-hours story of What Happened (he turns up at all the memorial events too), and Art Spiegelman's Maus graphic novels are similarly accessible while deeply moving. I'll be bringing my coursepacks down next week if you want to take a look at the ideas about the ideas of Holocaust representation.
*hugs* It ain't easy tho, I know babes.