From Memories to Memoirs (The Holocaust Museum)
OCTOBER 23, 2024
My visit to the Holocaust Museum in Skokie, Illinois, turned out to be a very emotional experience in a way traumatic. With me was my classmate, Kelli Manning. Muted and deeply immersed as I stood in the harshness of stark realism with the brutal confrontation of the bitter, nightmarish realities of one of humanity's darkest historic moments. The Holocaust was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazis and their supporters systematically murdered six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were carried out primarily through mass shootings and poison gas in concentration camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, and Chełmno in occupied Poland.
The exhibits and the virtual reality show exposed the horrors of the Holocaust bringing out both unimaginable atrocities done to people and the resilience of those who managed to survive. Of all the displays in this museum, the haunted images of children torn from their families and sent to concentration camps reached out to me. Innocence in their faces, versus the cruelty they suffered, stirred something within me.
During the visit, while reflecting on Elie Wiesel's Night, I was shocked by the brutal honesty of Wiesel's words: "For the first time, I felt revolt rise up in me. What had I to thank Him for?" So much of it was the capturing of inner pain from seeing such utter evil. The suffering depicted in the museum underlined Wiesel's rebuke to God for His silence, which is a theme throughout his memoir.
The truth at the museum pointed out the personal struggle Wiesel has always faced with his faith being contrasted by the atrocities of the Holocaust. This visit again brought reflections on the nature of evil: how evil can be manifested when society has failed in its protection of the vulnerable through the systematic dehumanization of millions because of hate and indifference. It is a reality with which the museum confronts us, reminding us that unless we make active resistance to such ideologies, history will continue to repeat itself.
Leaving with more questions than answers, I couldn't help but think where God was in the Holocaust. Perhaps, as Wiesel suggests, the silence of God in the face of such suffering is a challenge for humanity to never be silent in the face of injustice.
Thanks to Rev. Dr. Anna Case-Winters.
Author:
Philip Richard Sundaram
McCormick Theological Seminary
Co-Editor, The Herald