Waking up to the news that the last surviving liberator of Auschwitz, David Dushman, had died at 98 was a reminder to reflect on our history as people and to let it humble us. The sheer scope of human suffering that man must’ve witnessed is beyond the realm of comprehension to me, but that doesn’t mean I should stop thinking about it. In fact, it means just the opposite.
Through hearing the stories of people who have lived through the worst of the very worst we can get hope for today.
Dushman was 21 years old when he used he took out a section of electric fence surrounding Auschwitz with his tank. He was one of only 69 men in his division of about 12,000 to survive the war.
What is perhaps most inspiring to me is that Dushman remained close friends with a German man who was chief of the International Olympic Committee (Dushman became an acclaimed fencer at the international level).
Genocide is the worst of the worst of human capabilities—it’s a chilling, heartbreaking, disgusting aspect of our past that we are all responsible for grappling with to ensure it doesn’t happen again. As Dushman’s actions show, it doesn’t have to.
Closer to home—here in BC, on the island, and within the Camosun community—each of us has to take stock of our own privilege and biases and think about what reconciliation means to us. I’m not quite sure that it ever is truly possible to reconcile from the horrible, unthinkable, and inexcusable things that have happened in Canada. It’s something I think about, and saying that I’m ashamed to be Canadian doesn’t even begin to describe what’s going on inside my head when I think about what happened in Kamloops.
Again and again, I come back to this: it’s time to listen and learn, yes, but it’s also time to realize the role that each of us plays in hanging on to our collective pasts or moving forward. When we seem to take one step forward and five big leaps back as more and more of the horrifying elements of Canada’s past get to where they belong—exposed and in the public eye—it’s hard to know just how to do that. I’m all ears.
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