We were shocked to see a mid-sized city within a few miles of Auschwitz, and even more shocked to see houses literally right next to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where people could look out their windows and see the barbed wire fence, the guard towers, the baracks, the train tracks, and if you squint just right, the remains of the gas chambers. Throughout this trip, many members of our group have been asking with horror and anger how people can go about their lives so close to these sites of mass murder, why they choose to live here, and why they don't leave. This has become even more accute in Warsaw, where the entire city was the site of massive oppression, destruction, and warfare. Little remains of the Warsaw Ghetto, and shopping malls, apartments, and schools have grown up to fill the space. In the space that once housed a massive train platform from which 300,000 Jews were sent to their deaths at Treblinka, there is a small memorial, a girls' school, a parking lot, and a playground. We couldn't imagine how people could go to school, park, and play in such a site.
Back in Krakow, we asked an American who had lived in Poland for many years this question. Her response was, "Some people say 'How can you live right next to Auschwitz?' Others say 'How can you live in Oswiecim?' Others say 'How can you live in Poland?' Others say 'How can you live in Europe?' Everyone has a different level of comfort. New York is on top of a Native American burial ground. Horrible things have happened all over the world and we all live right next to them."
I've been turning this over in my mind for the last couple days, trying to make sense of the life in the midst of destruction here. Then, in the middle of watching a heartbreaking documentary about the Warsaw Ghetto that brought us all to tears and exhausted many of us to the point where we didn't feel like we could ever return to normal life, a memory hit me that gave me peace around this issue.
I remembered that the first time I walked by the building where I work at SPU after the shooting there, I felt nauseated, and I was afraid that I would never be able to go back inside and work there. But the first time I actually went back inside, all of that disappeared. That building is a home for me, and I had so many good memories there that they outweighed the bad ones. Now I work there every day, and regularly walk right over the spot where someone died and the spot where someone almost died. But I don't regularly think about the shooting. Because those are also the spots where I have had conversations with friends, participated in professional development, and generally gone about my life for years.
The scale of the suffering in the SPU shooting cannot possibly be compared to the suffering in Auschwitz or the Warsaw ghetto. But it was suffering just the same and we experience it the same. This memory helped me understand how we can return to life, and how we always want to be home. I think it is hard for us to understand how people can live in these places because for us these places are only sites of tragedy. But for the people who live here, they are sites of tragedy AND they are home. I can understand wanting to be home no matter what has happened there. Seattle is my home and I would always want to come back to it. I have tried to live other places, but the aching for home is always too strong. SPU is my home, and for me, that is stronger than the memory of tragedy.
Back in Krakow, we asked an American who had lived in Poland for many years this question. Her response was, "Some people say 'How can you live right next to Auschwitz?' Others say 'How can you live in Oswiecim?' Others say 'How can you live in Poland?' Others say 'How can you live in Europe?' Everyone has a different level of comfort. New York is on top of a Native American burial ground. Horrible things have happened all over the world and we all live right next to them."
I've been turning this over in my mind for the last couple days, trying to make sense of the life in the midst of destruction here. Then, in the middle of watching a heartbreaking documentary about the Warsaw Ghetto that brought us all to tears and exhausted many of us to the point where we didn't feel like we could ever return to normal life, a memory hit me that gave me peace around this issue.
I remembered that the first time I walked by the building where I work at SPU after the shooting there, I felt nauseated, and I was afraid that I would never be able to go back inside and work there. But the first time I actually went back inside, all of that disappeared. That building is a home for me, and I had so many good memories there that they outweighed the bad ones. Now I work there every day, and regularly walk right over the spot where someone died and the spot where someone almost died. But I don't regularly think about the shooting. Because those are also the spots where I have had conversations with friends, participated in professional development, and generally gone about my life for years.
The scale of the suffering in the SPU shooting cannot possibly be compared to the suffering in Auschwitz or the Warsaw ghetto. But it was suffering just the same and we experience it the same. This memory helped me understand how we can return to life, and how we always want to be home. I think it is hard for us to understand how people can live in these places because for us these places are only sites of tragedy. But for the people who live here, they are sites of tragedy AND they are home. I can understand wanting to be home no matter what has happened there. Seattle is my home and I would always want to come back to it. I have tried to live other places, but the aching for home is always too strong. SPU is my home, and for me, that is stronger than the memory of tragedy.
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