From the late 40s through the early 70s, the young state of Israel experienced rapid growth, absorbing large waves of immigration from around the world, building towns, developing industries, and coming into its own as a modern democracy. The return to Zion, its biblical homeland after two millennia of exile, invigorated the imagination and hopes of Jews around the world. Following decades of persecution and antisemitism in the diaspora, they were finally able to live among their peers in their revived homeland.
I grew up in Israel, a child of the 60s and 70s. A Sabra – a Jewish person born in Israel (or before 1948 in Palestine) – and a second-generation child – those whose parents were victims of the Holocaust. Most of the adults of my youth were immigrants from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, and many of them were Holocaust survivors. They all tried to find their place in this new country, adapting their home customs to the emerging Israeli culture. Holocaust survivors, Eastern and Western European Jews who immigrated to Israel after WWII, suffered many forms of trauma from their survival and escape experiences. Mental health support was nonexistent, and they had to deal with their problems on their own. Admitting such problems and seeking help for them were seen as signs of weakness. The best they could do was immerse themselves in work and family life to mask those pains and struggles.
But as we understand today, those attempts were futile. Untreated traumas manifest themselves as unhealthy behavior, frustration, depression, and physical violence. We knew which parents or teachers we needed to be careful around so as not to set them off and incur their wrath. My elementary school principal was an angry woman who ruled the student body, teachers, and staff by bullying, fear, and intimidation, and had no empathy for struggling students. She preferred to solve any problem she faced by force rather than through thought. Holocaust Memorial Day at my elementary school was a day her colors would show. Her fiery speeches about Hitler and his cronies went over our young heads for the most part but allowed her a vent for her anger. For those reasons, she, much like other elementary and high school teachers I had, would be unlikely to be allowed near a classroom today. Holocaust commemoration focused on the six million Jews who perished in the Nazi extermination campaign. There was little or no mention of the other five million Roma, Soviet POWs, Poles, Jehovah’s Witnesses, German political opponents, homosexuals, the physically and mentally disabled, and others who met the same fate in the same ways and places.
My father, by contrast, never spoke about his experiences as a child and young man in Eastern Europe, but I suffered the consequences of those experiences for many years. I will not share here the details of the experiences I had at home and elsewhere, from teachers, neighbors, family members, and other adults. Still, I will say that those experiences caused me to distance myself from the topic of the Holocaust by the time I reached my teen years. It was a monster I could not defeat and had to keep at a distance for my safety. That was my position until I became a parent.
By then, I had become a history buff, read books about the war and the wake it left among the family of nations, and learned the stories of other nations that were affected by the actions of the 3rd Reich. World War II came to focus as a world war, not just a horrible cleansing of Jews by the crazed Nazi regime.
In 2010, toward the end of her high school years, my daughter signed up for March of the Living, an annual youth program that takes teens from around the world to Poland and Israel as part of a Holocaust and history education program. I read the program itinerary and wondered: how could these teens form a true understanding of this mammoth subject of the Holocaust by simply taking a class, hearing a lecture, and going on this program? I decided to find out for myself and signed up for the program. A parent’s group was planned to be included in the program, but since I was the only one who joined, I was added to my daughter’s group. That placement gave me an excellent POV, and I photographed the experiences from a teenager’s perspective. Those two weeks were both inspiring and eye-opening for me. I learned that you can have a good understanding of the Holocaust without having to live through its consequences by other people. After I returned home, I published those conclusions in a book (March of the Living, 2010, ISBN 978-0-615-48677-2).
In April of 2012, I was invited to meet with Dr. Moshe Gershovich, a history professor in the Department of History at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. At that meeting, Dr. Gershovich invited me to create an exhibit based on the book. As I embarked on that task, I wanted to refrain from retelling the story of the group trip. I saw an opportunity to combine the MotL experience with my childhood experiences and the lessons I have learned later. Over the following months, I arranged my thoughts and, using a select number of images from the book, created an exhibit that explored the trajectory of human atrocities and genocide as a common tool of war. The exhibit, Future, Beware!, opened at the University of Nebraska, Omaha’s Osborn Gallery on Friday, January 4, 2013. By the time it closed on Friday, February 22, 2013, thousands of visitors had viewed its content. Many of them took the accompanying book for continued reflection. During its seven-week run, three lectures on Holocaust-related topics were held in the gallery.
In my Future, Beware! artist statement, I observed that the triangular perpetrator-victim-bystander dynamic is akin to other struggles people are involved in, where the only varying parts are the magnitude of the conflict and the means by which the sides take up with each other. From school fights to family feuds to civic and democratic disagreements to global conflicts, this dynamic persists. Our involvement in each conflict varies too; throughout our lifetimes, each of us takes one of the three positions in every conflict we are part of, and our role will differ each time, depending on the situation and its components. We are always part of a conflict; even a bystander is.
Learning to recognize these human traits is pivotal. It gives us a tool to assess our options early in a situation and make wiser decisions about our response and involvement. Our reactions could affect our peers and save untold pain, suffering, misunderstanding, and agony down the line. Our collective history shows it is part of our behavior. We may not be able to extinguish the fires completely, but we can certainly reduce their intensity.
The years I spent away from Israel and the personal growth I experienced in that time allowed me to have a better view of the topic of the Holocaust and the consequences it inflicted on the adults surrounding me, and by extension, me. That time also helped me come to terms with issues rooted in my earlier experiences. I have visited several Holocaust museums around the world and spoken on the topic numerous times. I continue to learn about history, human behavior, and about myself. We all learn from our experiences. Sometimes it can be enough; sometimes it can be too much.
To see a virtual tour of the Future, Beware! exhibit, click here.