The discomfort of facing difficult truths

"An individual should not be made to feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race.”

Here is my February column for the @HollandSentinel:

Is discomfort okay, if it helps us learn important truths?

Last week a Republican member of the Florida state legislature, Manny Diaz, introduced a bill that read (in part): “An individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, does not bear responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex."

The legislation, similar to other bills now being introduced in state legislatures around the country, seeks to prevent public schools from teaching about past discrimination: "An individual should not be made to feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race.”

I read that and wondered if “discomfort” had played a role in my education over the years. Did I ever learn something valuable because I faced facts that made me uncomfortable?

Many times.

A few months before moving back to the United States, my wife and I made a three-hour drive from our home in Zürich, Switzerland, to Dachau, Germany. After all the cathedrals and art museums and famous landmarks, I wanted to see for myself one of the relics of Nazi Germany’s past.

On March 22, 1933, only a few weeks after Adolph Hitler had been appointed Reich Chancellor, a concentration camp for political dissidents was built in Dachau, which is now a suburb of Munich. The camp, the first of its kind, became a model for all later concentration camps, as well as a “school of violence” for members of the SS who administered the camp. (An SS training facility was established immediately adjacent to the camp.)

In its brief 12-year history, over 200,000 people were imprisoned there, and 41,500 of them were murdered. When American troops liberated the camp on April 29, 1945, corpses were stacked like firewood waiting to be cremated. The camp imprisoned mostly political dissidents, homosexuals, and people now referred to as Roma. Dachau, importantly, was not an extermination camp, like Auschwitz, which was built for the purpose of murdering Jews.

During our tour of the camp, I asked our guide whether or not German school children learn about Germany’s past and in particular about the holocaust. I learned—and have since read confirmation—that teaching about the holocaust is mandatory in German schools, though the emphasis may vary from state to state. Not only are all German school children introduced to their recent history, most of them have also visited either a concentration camp like Dachau or a holocaust museum.

If I were a parent of a German school-age child, I think that I would be supportive. The “never again” sentiment is strong in Germany, and it can be attributed at least in part to this unflinching recognition of Germany’s past.

Which brings me back to Sen. Diaz’s bill and others like it. Why would the United States want to ignore or downplay its past, especially its history of slavery?

From 1501 to 1866, an estimated 12.5 million people were shipped from the west coast of Africa to the Americas, where they were put to work, primarily on sugar and tobacco plantations.

The Atlantic passage, or Middle Passage, which usually led to Brazil or to an island in the Caribbean, was notorious for its brutality and for the overcrowded and unsanitary conditions on slave ships, in which hundreds of Africans were packed tightly into tiers below decks for a voyage of about 5,000 miles that could last from a few weeks to several months.

There is more to the story, of course, and the picture does not get brighter. It’s a part of our history. My first encounter with this history was in high school when I read The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South. I remember feeling discomfort, guilt, and anguish, all the responses that Sen. Diaz would want to protect me from. Between my parents and my social studies teacher, however, I was able absorb this information and process it.

Looking back, I’m glad I read that book—and a few others like it. I’m glad that I had parents and social studies teachers who could redirect my feelings into something helpful and purposeful.

As for whether or not I “bear responsibility for actions committed in the past,” as the proposed legislation puts it, I suppose I do. I bear responsibility if I don’t do anything with what I’ve learned. I bear responsibility if I don’t live differently, if I don’t speak on behalf of people who are treated with unspeakable cruelty. I bear responsibility if I don’t say, as loudly as I can, “Never again!”

Photo (above): Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) is a project of the artist Gunter Demnig. The project commemorates people who were persecuted by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945. Stolpersteine are concrete blocks measuring 10x10cm which are laid into the pavement in front of the last voluntarily chosen places of residence of the victims of the Nazis. Their names and fate are engraved into a brass plate on the top of each Stolperstein. (“Here lived Irma Rosenthal, born in Loewenberg, 1910, deported 1943, murdered in Auschwitz.”) Not only is the holocaust taught in German schools, it is nearly impossible to walk the streets of Berlin (and other German cities) without seeing these. The project is meant to make us feel discomfort.

Photo (below): The main gate at the Dachau concentration camp.