Learn or Repeat

In view of current events around the world, I have recently been thinking of history lessons from high school. So much of what I see and hear today reminds me of what transpired prior to World War II.

The events that led to this war, and the atrocities that took place, should have been enough to ensure they wouldn't happen again. Sadly, I fear that if we don't wake up and recognize the propaganda being spread by world leaders, we will be doomed to repeat them.

I'm not sure what history classes include for today's youth, but I question whether the true depth and damage caused by world wars is clearly laid before them. Have we become so concerned about frightening them that we have homogenized the past?

Even as adults we have a tendency perhaps not to forget the past, but to bury it deep in our memories. None of us care to dwell on unpleasant events. However, every now and then something is put before me not only to remind me, but to teach me about another piece of history.

In an AAARP Magazine article written by Martha Hall Kelly, I learned of 74 young Catholic Polish women who were held in Ravensbruck, the largest all-female concentration camp in Hitler's Third Reich. Nazi doctors used them as lab animals and did terrible experiments on them. Another heartbreaking piece of history and a reminder of the terrible things that one human being is capable of doing to another. To read Martha Hall Kelly's article in full:
 https://www.aarp.org/entertainment/books/info-2018/martha-hall-kelly.html 

We may not need to terrify our children, but we must ensure they have full knowledge of world history. They are the future, and with a full understanding of what came before perhaps they won't repeat the past. To quote author Martha Hall Kelly; "But it's not for me to forgive Herta, and I don't know if I even should. What I can do is tell her story and show what philosopher Hannah Arendt called the banality of evil, the chilling ease with which seemingly normal people do atrocious things. After so much study of how the Nazis built up their toxic evil world, it's clear to me how vulnerable we all are to this type of propaganda."


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