Day 25, 7 July:

Today was about the Holocaust. a day which in retrospect the class called "intense." A lecture by Prof. David Barnouw at the Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie gave historical context to the country's victimhood of the German invasion and Holocaust. The Professor posed an important question: what will happen to the memory of the Holocaust as generations pass? Will our future forget, and our lessons expire? The city displays dozens of monuments. Will these keep its culture informed?

We saw museums paying tribute to the honorable Dutch resistance and the history of Jewish culture. "NOOIT MEER AUSCHWITZ," engraved in glass at the Auschwitz memorial, means to never abandon the memory of the death camp's victims. Visitors could walk over the broken mirrors, an act reflecting the significance of individual responsibility in the face of inhumane atrocities. The February Strike memorial represents the progressive solidarity of the working-class resistance through the singular figure of a monumental everyday man. The gay and lesbian memorial, a series of three pink marble triangles, comemmorates not only the queer victims of the Holocaust but victims of AIDS as well. Through the subtlety of being built into the cityscape, the memorial is able to represent the deep tolerance of homosexuality in Dutch culture.

I haven't mentioned that at the Institute we watched a film called Zwartboek, directed by Paul Werdooven. It's not surprising to know he did Robocop; the plot was a dramatized pastiche "based on true events" and the mainstream demands of the action-war drama genre. I don't think this style is the most respectful or educative or deep way to approach such historical material, but it is the most charged and suturing. A sober film would have seemed more appropriate to be shown at such an institute, but perhaps street memorials and such movies would not be enough to keep the memory alive. Prof. Barnouw expressed a pessimism that was unfortunately professional. To the future, the Holocaust may seem as aloof as the Napoleonic Wars seem to us, now.

The Anne Frank Huis was a straightforward place. You come, you pack through the renovated hideaway, read diary excerpts stenciled on the wall, see fragments of a life-in-hiding, read replicas of the Frank notebooks, develop your inner-connection to her experience. I thought what the museum lacked was an emphasis on the greater importance of why we remember Anne Frank. She is the most famous voice of the Holocaust's victims, yet she is just one voice. It feels a bit forgotten in the museum, which by memorializing her makes her seem legendary, erring on mythical, and distanced from the reality upon which we have based her commemoration. I believe that the museum should focus on the broader subject of Holocaust refugees and put the Anne Frank story second.

It was, however, a crowded place; as a steady source of funding it perhaps deserves no criticism. In the lobby there was a platform studded with voting podiums, in view of a projected screen to watch introductions to many of today's international controversies. (I was there to watch a clip about the illegal white-laced black combat boots, swastikas and other Nazi emblems in Germany. The audience voted 50%-50%, with the protest arguing for freedom of expression.) This exhibit had a powerful effect, the feeling of being in a room saturated with controversial disagreement and realization.

When I was in Houston until day 4 of 5, I spoke to an elite (highest tax bracket) mid-20s on a 7-month-vacation and touring-America German. To warn us from deception, he suggested that Obama's charisma relates him to Hitler. But he was a reasonable person; a lot of his complaints were the quantifying of taxes and percentages. In Berlin I met an old American on the subway. He bought me coffee and acted himself. His wife had died last September and he was still bitterly grieving; he's impatient, couldn't walk far, loved talking to or at people, is obsessed with his camera, and had several albums of photographs to share and people to talk about. The whole afternoon went by over slow dark beer and a five euro velocab. I mention him because he's homophobic, rude and sexist, an old marine and new widower, but he's here until he dies with outdated views that our generation now considers extremist. These are two people I met.