What on earth....
Ok, so I was de-fuzzing my hair brush this morning, washing all the crud that hair products leave in between the bristles- it is a time consuming job, plus the enthralling nature of plucking wilting, greying hair that has merged to become blobs of grey matted stuff is a pleasure I could well forgo. In addition it has a very ominous connotation for me.
So... as I was de-fuzzing the hair brush this morning... it reminded me of the stacks, piles and hills of hair in the Auschwitz museum that I visited when I was 18. Now I went round this museum looking at the bits and pieces and of course it was horrible, but the amount of stuff that was around you, you did kind of become sensitised to it. In the end, at about ten o'clock at night when I was on the plane home, a sense of disappointment welled up in me. It didn't move me like I thought it would. Millions of people had died there. That was their stuff. That was their hair that was cut forcibly from their heads. Nope. Not a tear. And I am quite an emotional person, though I have realised over the years it will come into play at the most bizarre and inconvenient time for me. Other times when I could really do with a bit of a cry I stow it up and appear uncaring.
I went home, went to school, began writing the speech to present to the school about "our experience" of Auschwitz. Huff. Well, I was merely jumping through the hoops of what the teachers wanted to hear, what the first years wouldn't think too traumatising and what the older years would think boring.
I was still fine. So come Monday morning I brushed my own hair and went to go and do this stupid little oratory number. There I was standing in front of the school and WHAM! Bloody wonderful timing. Photos were being shown I think, or I remember looking at some photos before I went on to do my bit and I think I was saying my part when my mind went blank. I hated speaking in public then. It was all a blur, all I know was it didn't go very well... I think a traumatised rabbit caught in the headlights with a very annoyed fellow student who had gone on the trip with me, saying "What IS wrong with you!"
I think it had something to do with my brushing my hair in the morning and then seeing the photo being paraded in front- then, just like in the movies, the fast forwarding effect with flashes of memories taken like photographs. A pile of shoes. Knitted baby clothes. Suitcases. Hair brushes. Glasses. Etc.
So on defuzzing my hair brush, like today, it always reminds me of the greying hair that had been lopped off those poor individuals- once brown, blond, red, black- now sits in a museum slowly rotting whilst unfeeling people parade past it with some ignorant dutiful sense of importance.
Another thing that often sparks me to remember a) the horrors of Auschwitz and b) the humiliating spectacle in front of the school is my friend Jenny's porch. They used to have shoes piled either side of the doorway as you walked through their front door. Really creeped me out. There were old shoes from when they were kids stacked just like those in the cabinets in the museum.
I suppose it makes me feel bad when looking at those shoes or de-fuzzing my hair brush that I associate mass slaughter with half an hour of intense humiliation at school. No comparison really is there?
Anyhooo that is all folks. I think I have probably depressed you all enough for the time being :)
Ok, so I was de-fuzzing my hair brush this morning, washing all the crud that hair products leave in between the bristles- it is a time consuming job, plus the enthralling nature of plucking wilting, greying hair that has merged to become blobs of grey matted stuff is a pleasure I could well forgo. In addition it has a very ominous connotation for me.
So... as I was de-fuzzing the hair brush this morning... it reminded me of the stacks, piles and hills of hair in the Auschwitz museum that I visited when I was 18. Now I went round this museum looking at the bits and pieces and of course it was horrible, but the amount of stuff that was around you, you did kind of become sensitised to it. In the end, at about ten o'clock at night when I was on the plane home, a sense of disappointment welled up in me. It didn't move me like I thought it would. Millions of people had died there. That was their stuff. That was their hair that was cut forcibly from their heads. Nope. Not a tear. And I am quite an emotional person, though I have realised over the years it will come into play at the most bizarre and inconvenient time for me. Other times when I could really do with a bit of a cry I stow it up and appear uncaring.
I went home, went to school, began writing the speech to present to the school about "our experience" of Auschwitz. Huff. Well, I was merely jumping through the hoops of what the teachers wanted to hear, what the first years wouldn't think too traumatising and what the older years would think boring.
I was still fine. So come Monday morning I brushed my own hair and went to go and do this stupid little oratory number. There I was standing in front of the school and WHAM! Bloody wonderful timing. Photos were being shown I think, or I remember looking at some photos before I went on to do my bit and I think I was saying my part when my mind went blank. I hated speaking in public then. It was all a blur, all I know was it didn't go very well... I think a traumatised rabbit caught in the headlights with a very annoyed fellow student who had gone on the trip with me, saying "What IS wrong with you!"
I think it had something to do with my brushing my hair in the morning and then seeing the photo being paraded in front- then, just like in the movies, the fast forwarding effect with flashes of memories taken like photographs. A pile of shoes. Knitted baby clothes. Suitcases. Hair brushes. Glasses. Etc.
So on defuzzing my hair brush, like today, it always reminds me of the greying hair that had been lopped off those poor individuals- once brown, blond, red, black- now sits in a museum slowly rotting whilst unfeeling people parade past it with some ignorant dutiful sense of importance.
Another thing that often sparks me to remember a) the horrors of Auschwitz and b) the humiliating spectacle in front of the school is my friend Jenny's porch. They used to have shoes piled either side of the doorway as you walked through their front door. Really creeped me out. There were old shoes from when they were kids stacked just like those in the cabinets in the museum.
I suppose it makes me feel bad when looking at those shoes or de-fuzzing my hair brush that I associate mass slaughter with half an hour of intense humiliation at school. No comparison really is there?
Anyhooo that is all folks. I think I have probably depressed you all enough for the time being :)
