Back when I was on the visitor services staff at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC, I would peruse the notebooks left out at the end of the permanent exhibition for people to record their thoughts. The recurring statement was simply, "Never again."
Ron Coleman is right. “'Never again' is the Big Lie of the second half of the twentieth century."
Tonight, on the eve of the 65th anniversary of the deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka, we must be honest: If we knew then what we know now, about the mass killings, the gas chambers, the sick human experimentation, the crematoria — if we knew it were going on right now …The USHMM makes a big song and dance about being the nation's conscience on genocide, and they do go to great lengths to make abundantly clear how serious the situation is in Darfur. To what effect?America, and the rest of the world, would not do a damned thing about it.
None whatsoever. America sleeps. Democratic presidential candidates decry humanitarian intervention towards prevention of genocide, and Republicans know that they aren't allowed to deploy the military in force again for at least 10 years.
Saying "Never again," does not make it so. In fact, quite the opposite. The more you say it, it seems, the less likely you will do a damn thing about it.
Hmmmm, did you ever wonder if the caption "Never Again" actually implied never getting involved again despite the atrocities?
Posted by: nancy | 31 July 2007 at 13:18
A fair point. Maybe they meant that they would 'never again' get up early to go stand in line in the biting cold wind to get tickets for such a depressing exhibition. That's a fair interpretation, and more in line with the evidence.
Posted by: Dan | 31 July 2007 at 19:14