Memorial plaque

I wrote this post already back in February, but I forgot to translate my own writing. I felt I should do it in English as well, to keep up the consistency.

Lately there has been quite a strong discussion on anti-semtisim in France. With more extreme nationalist trends all over the Western world, vandalism and violence against religious minorities is on the rise.

I wanted to write about this particular subject because I’ve always been deeply interested in the Second World War, it scared me and made me determined that humanity could not let similar events happen again (which it sadly has). I can’t count how many nights I couldn’t sleep while pondering on the lives of those who were torn from their families, their homes, their jobs and sent to their death - for the simple fact of being born into a certain religion.

When I was younger I didn’t know much of the differences of these religions. I learned young from my father that people could believe in God in many different ways and that it didn’t really matter much which path you’d take to him (and in what “form” he’d be).

My childhood taught me to not distinguish between people based on what they believe and by learning about these horrendous events I got passionate about human rights and the fight against prejudice (whichever format they come in, and against whom).

Actually, the main reason why this subject came to my mind is that I’ve been reading a bit into the history of Paris during the war and how life was like under the occupation. It’s a touchy subject in France, as it were French public servants of the Vichy regime who assisted in the rounding up of French Jews (as well as though who had sought refuge in Paris, from other countries). Many locals overlooked these events and that’s where the shame lies. Obviously, many French citizens risked their lives as well, for those prosecuted, and this we cannot forget either.

All over Paris there are memorial plaques, most often on buildings, where the inhabitants of the city are remembered. Many are dedicated to those who perished in the war, but others are from other points in time.

I think you start reflecting more on the events when you stand outside a building and think, “yes, these people lived here, they opened this door and they walked up that stair” - in stead of reading about it in a text. I had been thinking about this a lot when I walked out to the laundromat one day and noticed that on the elementary school next to my little apartment, there was a memorial plaque. On my way back home I saw that the high school around the corner also has a plaque.

“In the memory of the students of this school, who were deported in 1942-1944 because they were born Jewish. Innocent victims of the barbarity of Nazism and the Vichy regime, they lost their lives in concentration camps. More than 700 of these children were from the 18th arrondissement.”

These children played in the same street I walk in the morning when I go to the metro, they lived in buildings around me and they played ball games like the kids who run past my window do today.

The saddest thing about this is that humans are still doing these horrendous things. Children die, they flee, get discriminated against based on their origins, they get held up for months in detention centers, they drown in the sea where Europeans bathe in the summer. All of these things I’ve written here are the reasons why I try to always speak up against prejudice and evil, whoever’s taking part, because it’s always the innocent who get the brunt of hate-speech and violence.