Of Humanity

I don't know how to exactly write this post, I don't even know what to start it with. I hope this makes sense, well at least I hope at the end, you'll get the message that I intended to deliver.

I was watching the 18th episode of Bones Season 8. It was the scene where Agent Booth interrogated a prime suspect of a murder, who was an RUF (Revolutionary United Front) general - the man responsible for recruiting thousands of child soldiers in Sierra Leone during the Sierra Leone Civil War. The suspect wasn't admitting to be the person the FBI agent claimed he is. So Booth then said, "Okay, so here are your choices..."

"You either confess to this murder, and you're tried here or... we deport you back to The Hague, 

where you have to answer to 17 counts of crimes against humanity... for which you've already been indicted."

By the time Booth said 'crimes against humanity', my chest hurt and my heart just broke, and by the time he ended his sentence with the word 'indicted', I already found myself sobbing. And I just let tears rolled down my cheek for the remaining seven minutes as the case in the episode resolved.

* * *

I was in Nuremberg and Berlin for my winter break. My housemates decided to go for an 'educational trip' - more of like a World War II tour around Germany and Poland to learn more about the history of the war at the region. To be honest, I didn't really know much about World War(s), until a few days before the trip, Una suggested that we watch 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas' on Netflix for our kind of 'movie night'. She watched it when she was younger and thought that it was a good movie and though it is fictional, it might give me a context on what World War II in Germany was about. I have to admit that if it wasn't for that movie, I wouldn't be as affected as I was during the trip while I was learning about that infamous part of world history - having that view of 'striped pyjamas' flashing in my mind really haunted me throughout the trip.

Before we move on, I just want to say that World War II was more than about the rise of Nazism and Fascism and Socialism in Germany; there were things happening in China and Japan and other parts of the world too (basically those things we learnt in SPM Sejarah) but these revolutions are definitely one of the major causes of the World War.

In Nuremberg, we visited the Dokumentationszentrum, a museum in the north wing part of the unfinished remains of the Congress Hall that used to be the ground for the former Nazi Party rallies. While the exhibition itself is in German, audio guides in other languages were provided for visitors to explore on the causes, the context, and the repercussions of the National Socialist reign of terror. For a person who was not really familiar with the detailed story of the World War, I was a bit overwhelmed with too much information to take at once.

Left: Aerial view of the former Nazi Party Rally Ground. 

Right: Satellite picture of Nuremberg with marking of the old town and the former Nazi Party Rally Ground

Anyway, Nuremberg was (or maybe still is) significant - in the World War II history - for being the place where the war criminals; Adolf Hitler and some others including Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Goering was trialled and prosecuted. My friends and I visited the Memorium Nuremberg Trials which houses the original courtroom; Courtroom 600, where the Nuremberg Trials (the Major War Criminal Trials) took place. It was in this courtroom that the leaders of the Nazi regime had to answer for their crimes before an International Military Tribunal (IMT) between November 20, 1945 and October 1, 1946.

Courtroom 600

The four counts in the indictment for the trials are:

1. Conspiracy to commit crimes alleged in the next three counts.

2. Crimes against peace including planning, preparing, starting or waging aggressive war.

3. War crimes including violations of laws or customs of war.

4. Crimes against humanity including murder, extermination, enslavement, persecution on political or racial grounds, involuntary deportment, and inhumane acts against civilian populations.

(Now you know why 'indictment' and 'crimes against humanity' made my chest feels like bursting, don't you :( )

I was a bit blur and exhausted when I was thrown with such a huge wave of information, but when I was in Berlin, I guess I started to understand things a lot better, and felt remorse more often too.

In Berlin, we visited the Holocaust Memorial; or formally named as Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, as part of our free walking tour. The memorial consists of a field of stelae (upright stone slab or column typically bearing a commemorative inscription or relief design) with over 2,700 concrete blocks, as shown in the photo below. There's no practical explanation why the number 2, 700 is chosen though. 

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

We also went to the museum or the underground Information Centre that lies below the memorial in the evening to explore the stories of the Jewish victims during the Holocaust. The first part of the exhibition briefs visitors on the overview of the National Socialist terror policies from 1933-1945. There were also images and text on the persecution and murder of Jews in Europe, which can be very upsetting for some, but that's not even the most depressing part of the exhibit.

The next room (Room of Dimensions) was filled with the digital presentation of diary entries, letters and final notes written during the period of persecution. There were letters from mothers to daughters, sisters to another sisters, among neighbours as well probably, I can't seem to exactly remember.

This picture is taken for the purpose of my Instagram stories hence the orientation. This is how the Room of Dimensions look like, with the digital presentation on the floors - there were approximately 30 screens if I am not mistaken.






But the most touching part of the exhibit, which is probably the room I spent most of my time in the museum, is called 'Room of Families'. There were photos and personal documents of 15 families that represent various Jewish home environments. This part of the exhibit gives an account of the expulsion and murder of these people; of the way and the year they died, and if any of the family members survived.

One of the section in the 'Room of Families'

The next room is a spot that I stayed the shortest, because there were limited text and no images. Why? Because this is a room where the names and short biographies of murdered and missing Jews from across Europe were read aloud. And according to the one-and-only text panel in the room, it would take approximately six years, seven months and 27 days to read the life stories of all the victims aloud in that form, and that takes into account that the voice recording is not even turned off when the museum is closed.

In the final room, the Room of Sites, the Holocaust is represented in its geographical entirity across all of Europe, focusing on the locations of crimes in central and eastern Europe. There were photographic materials on the sites where European Jews and other victims were persecuted and exterminated, and there were also historical footage - you know those 'telephones' set up by museums with voices of people telling stories - on things that were happening in the extermination camps. The phrase that I heard most of the time is, "I never see them/her/him again." I'm pretty sure those are the ones I heard from survivors of the camps, talking about their family members who were sent for extermination and most probably asphyxiated in the gas chambers 😢

We also visited another memorial dedicated to the genocide of the Sinti and Roma. They were among the other race groups apart from the Jews that were taken away and murdered in the course of achieving the National Socialist's goal of the destruction of the minority with their racist ideology. We weren't allowed to take pictures in the memorial but the central element of the memorial is essentially a fountain with a retractable stone column, which according to a brochure that I read, a fresh flower is placed upon it every day. The memorial is also surrounded by a 'wall' that tells visitors the story of the genocide that was hardly recognised by the German public.

A sign outside the Memorial to the Sinti and Roma of Europe Murdered under the National Socialist Regime

I then visited Munich with another group of friends, with nothing related to World War II was initially part of the plan. But long story short, we ended up visiting the Documentation Centre on one of our evenings in Munich.

A person I significantly remember from my visit to the NS-Dokumentationszentrum Munchen (Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism) is a German carpenter who was ardently opposed to Nazism, and decided to do something about it as he anticipated that Hitler's regime would lead the country towards war. This man, Georg Elser, spent several months building a 144-hour timer bomb, which he set to explode while Hitler was giving his speech at the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch in 1939. But luck was just not on his side as Hitler finished his speech 13 minutes before the bomb exploded (Elser's plan was on point but Hitler had moved the start time of his speech to about an hour earlier than the initial time). The bomb went off anyway: Elser was later captured and he then confessed about his bomb plans to the authorities. He ended up spending the next several years in one of the Nazi concentration camps, and was later executed by the SS (Schutzstaffel - a paramilitary organisation under Hitler) in April 1945. 

What a brave man he was, and for me, to have the courage to execute his plan alone, that was applaudable. I later discovered that Georg Elser's plan wasn't the only assassination attempt done on Hitler; there's more of them that you can read here.

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That was much longer than what I initially expected to write, and there was actually more than that but I might as well take a break before I put my readers into the agony of information overload.

After reading this, I hope you're thinking what I am thinking. The Second World War has ended but these genocide stories, they haven't reached an ending yet. And I really hope you're thinking of what I'm thinking of right now. Yes, the people in China, the Uyghur, the Muslims. This is nothing less than the genocide during the world war. They have concentration camps that they call educational camps or whatever, they were killed, they were murdered, they were exterminated, enslaved - this is definitely another crime against humanity, among other genocides that were/are happening in Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and so on.

As much as I want to say that I am proud of what Germany has done in taking ownership on their own dark past, I also can't help but feel upset when I think of the lives of the six millions Jews and others who were murdered - it matters. And now that they are all gone, I also wonder, are the lessons gone too? Are we letting history repeating itself?

What do we do about it? What do I do about it? I am not as brave as Georg Elser. Days passed since I left Germany but there's no day that has passed without me not thinking about it, especially when I keep seeing the news on the Uyghur being circulated on social media.

But... When is this gonna end? The word humanity is supposed to be very tender... kind... buoyant... and hopeful... And for me, it feels like the existence of 'crime against humanity' is making the hopeful word vandalised, ruined, impaired, or whatever you want to call it, and it's really, really heartbreaking.

It is, it really is.