Too Much Data
I have so many thoughts and feelings rushing through me because of this trip, and I desperately want to find some pattern in the cacophony. So I might post a lot for a bit. I understand if it’s too much, but I promise it’s not a permanent shift.
Do you ever have a period in your life where your vision expands? It’s happened a number of times for me, usually when I can finally connect history to propaganda to experience to psychology into something that’s approaching what might be reality.
Like, I was raised by hippies, so obviously all humans are simply human, but when I looked around me, that was demonstrably untrue. I started with class, and was as Left as a person can be before I graduated from University.
Race was more difficult, because that involved accepting I had not been able to simply treat everyone the same. It took me questioning why my world was the way it was and genuinely seeking out and listening to voices that I never would have found otherwise. It was humbling--it still is.
I was so, so pissed when I realized, I, daughter of the matriarch, had imbibed internalized misogyny to a terrifying degree. I’ll be rooting all of the above rot out of my brain, my soul, for the rest of my life. But that’s the one that’s best at hiding from me.
Until coming to Poland, I had vaguely considered that the way WWII has been framed was likely pretty biased based on the country. However, the horror overrode most analytical thought. Who cares how it played out when a trainload of thousands of people would be dead in an hour and a half from pulling up to an extermination camp?
So I missed that my history classes were painting Poland as willing collaborators. Because that benefited the Allies. Anti-Semitism was why all the ‘good guys’ turned away a constant stream of Jewish refugees. Once the images and film reels tore across the world, those same ‘good guys’ needed someone else to blame.
Of all the nations, Poland fought the fiercest, because, for many of them, the Jews of Poland were simply Poles. Poland protected their people more than most countries. They certainly spilled more blood. The more people share their families’ histories with me, the richer, more nuanced this story becomes.
I wonder how many times I will need to learn that people are just people before I can apply it everywhere.
All the time.
Once again, I am humbled.





















