President Obama toured Buchenwald with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, in effort to remember the lives of so many who died at the hands of a destructive sick mankind as well as to honor the courage and resistance of those who survived.
“We reflect on the human capacity for evil,” President Obama said. “This site is a reminder that people were deemed inhuman because of their differences.”
Chancellor Merkel spoke about the Germans’ disbelief that their own people could have been the mastermind of the murder of millions of Jews. Merkel said this dark past in German history forces Germany to cooperate with the West in its quest to end terrorism worldwide.
But, the most powerful segment of the press conference was the remarks from Elie Wiesel- a holocaust survivor who lived in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. He reminded us that “every war is absurd and meaningless” and that “hatred is not an option.” Wiesel said there must come a time when people learn to come together. Wiesel hopes our new President will change the course of America’s questionable path to end terrorism abroad, which has killed innocent civilians in the process.
“I have high hopes for you Mr. President…I am not so sure the world has learned,” Elie Wiesel said.
America must reflect on these words. Has America learned? If we look at the last eight years, one wonders how could we sit back and allow our government to attack Iraq, kill thousands of civilians, detain people without a trial, and torture them overseas. There seems to be a fine line between deeming someone is inhuman because of their differences and detaining them in a torture camp because we have deemed them a “terrorist”. How do we know they are a terrorist if we never put them on trial and tortured them during questioning in order to obtain evidence? Or are we simply detaining people because they are Muslims, who may have been around or connected to some “bad guys”.
Are we improving the human condition or are we going around the world killing innocent people? Have we learned from the past? What do you think?
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