Enough to Remove My Writer's Block

I haven't been here, I know. I've had thoughts swirling around my head about the most random topics lately, but nothing has made its way from my brain to my hand. I wanted to write something about the Air France flight, but Karen and Amy did a darn good job channeling my thoughts in their blogs.

Today my dander is up, so to speak. I was driving home this afternoon with my thoughts somewhere in la la land when I heard NPR say something about "A shooting at the Holocaust Museum in DC. Suspect in critical condition. Guard fatally shot." I closed the window and turned up the radio.

I got home and pulled up the internet. There on Yahoo's home page was a picture of the museum with the latest on the story. The killer is a supremacist. He believes the Holocaust was a myth. He walked into the museum and took the life of a guard who was doing his job this morning.

I've been to that museum. I went there with Sara, Karen and Stein one summer when we tromped around the mall acting like tourists. (Well, Stein and I were tourists, Sara and Karen were the tour guides). As we stood in the long lines just to get tickets for a time slot later that day, I wondered how this museum would stand up to actually seeing a concentration camp firsthand.

Later that afternoon as I stood in front of the many chilling images on the walls there, I thought it definitely did it justice.

Today my thoughts instantly put me back in that museum. Although I don't remember every detail of that somber place, I do remember how it made me feel. There were so many questions that kept creeping up as I read each display about the history of the war, the morale of the people, and the man who orchestrated it all. "Why?" of course was my main question.

Today I find myself asking that same question. For exactly the same reason. Why did this person do this? What was his background or upbringing that made him think and act this way?

What this person doesn't want to believe is in the place where he committed this awful crime, there is a message that rings loud and clear. It's a message that the museum hopes will spread. The Holocaust did happen. Unfortunately the Holocaust happened because of people's beliefs similar to this man's. We need to remember the Holocaust, so it never happens again. And what this person doesn't realize, is because of his act of violence at this place, people's dander is up. From places around the world, people are awakened once again by the importance of remembering.

We remember.