Mastodawn

Jenny Zehringer Oct 10, 2023

So I follow the @auschwitzmuseum account, and when I see a post of an individual, I take a moment with them. What they looked like. Where they were from. I try to learn to pronounce their name if it is unfamiliar to me. I purposefully make the effort to bring this human individual into my mind and think about the life and potential that they had that was stolen from them. I make them real for me. I don't know them. I will never truly know them. But I want to acknowledge that they existed and that their existence was extinguished and that their very existence was important and has meaning.

I know not everyone has the emotional bandwidth to do this. For me, my flavor of neurodivergency has a tendency to want to pull me outside of humanity, so I find this practice as one way for me to reconnect and to sit with the tragedy and to feel. It isn't a good feeling obviously. But it helps cement the importance of our humanity and that we as humans have a lot of work ahead of us to be better to one another.

The Real Falsehooder Oct 10, 2023

@glitch25 @auschwitzmuseum I, too, do that.

Barbara Monaco Oct 10, 2023

@glitch25 @auschwitzmuseum
I do the same. I speak their names aloud. It's difficult, but I feel I must give recognition to the precious human being that was lost. Each life was unique and valuable.
Their histories demonstrate that humanity can sink into some very dark spaces very quickly.
Yes, we have much work ahead of us.

Anikke 🌻 🚴‍ 🇺🇦🇬🇱 ♀️ #ichbinantifa Oct 10, 2023

@glitch25 @auschwitzmuseum
Thank you for your words. I follow @auschwitzmuseum too and like you I look at the pictures and the dates and I imagine what kind of persons they had been.
And each time I think, that they only wanted to live their lives, they were brothers, sisters, children, mothers, fathers or friends.
It is important, that we always remember what will happen, when we let fascists do their things.

Jimbo Oct 10, 2023

@glitch25 @auschwitzmuseum I do that too. I also have a rule to boost the posts of those who were murdered, and favorite the posts of who survived.

David Brent 📚Oct 10, 2023

@glitch25 @auschwitzmuseum I do the math based on their birthdate to figure out how old they were when their lives were cut short. As a father to two young boys, I find the children to be the most heartbreaking. I can't help but try to imagine the horror they must have experienced.

Jan Anne Bos Oct 10, 2023

@glitch25 @auschwitzmuseum

ruthless!Oct 10, 2023

@glitch25 @auschwitzmuseum
I'm not neurodivergent, but I do the same thing as you.

Marcos Oct 10, 2023

@Ruth_ruthless @auschwitzmuseum I only bring that up because i acknowledge that it gives me the privilege to be able to better cope. Some do not have the luxury of the emotional bandwidth to perform this practice. But it feels important for me to do.

ruthless!Oct 10, 2023

@glitch25 @auschwitzmuseum Thanks for the explanation. The individual steps you describe - looking calmly at the photo, saying the name - also help me. They slow down everyday life and pull me into the photograph.

Mark Ohe Oct 10, 2023

@glitch25 @auschwitzmuseum

Well said. I find myself doing something much like that.

Mel Campbell Oct 10, 2023

@glitch25 @auschwitzmuseum I do this too. If the photo posted is a camp photo I also try to picture them outside the camp wearing normal clothes, with a regular hairstyle, well nourished and healthy. I calculate their age and remember what I (or older people I know) was doing at that age

It frightens me how the lessons of Auschwitz and the Holocaust are being forgotten

Stuart Celarier ❌👑Oct 10, 2023

@glitch25 @auschwitzmuseum Thank you for sharing this. I am sometimes haunted by their photos for days. They say, "I was somebody. I was somebody's child, their parent, their sibling, somebody's lover, neighbor, colleague, or friend. And then I was murdered by the Nazis along with six million Jews and six to eleven million others. We were all somebody and then we were gone. Do not forget us."

Cody Boone Ferguson Oct 10, 2023

@glitch25 @auschwitzmuseum that is to be commended. It makes many people very uncomfortable and it has prevented people from truly learning and even denying. Even people right there denied what was going on. There’s the story where a man was told his family was up the chimney replied that it was a bakery. It took him some time to believe it. The flowers next to the Gaskammern and the unbelievability combined with the Bad (bath) sign and other deceit was deadly.

Cody Boone Ferguson Oct 10, 2023

@glitch25 @auschwitzmuseum I fortunately don’t have the problem of feeling uncomfortable. It’s horrible but I can detach and then understand everything. I have over 40 books on the subject including the memoirs of Rudolf Höß. He was very frank. I also have survivor stories.

I had to detach very early on. Some might think this is a disadvantage but it’s not because I can truly understand it.

Cody Boone Ferguson Oct 10, 2023

@glitch25 @auschwitzmuseum I have also suffered from the hands of people. Not indeed in the same way but it is why I had to detach so early on in life. The survivors had to do this too.

I would like to believe that I would have done the right thing then but who knows? What I do know is that I have saved lives and I will continue to do it (from suicide). I have been there as well.

Dominique Hoffman -zebras54.fr Oct 11, 2023

@glitch25 @auschwitzmuseum - thank you for keeping their memories alive.