Spending the day at the Holocaust Museum helped me gain a better understanding of the courageous acts, resilience and perseverance of the Jewish people throughout the historical and political catastrophes during the Second World War. I was fascinated by the connection that existed between East Asian and the Jewish people, in which Shanghai was a place of refuge for the Jews during the war and postwar period. The cohort had the opportunity to connect with Jewish community members and leaders of the Jewish Federation, going on a tour around the museum and seeing exhibits of stories and artifacts that displays the historical moments and remembrance of the Jewish refugees.
As I went through pictures and articles in the exhibit, the stories reminded me of the hardship of the Cambodian people during a dark era, a genocide known as “Khmer Rouge” which took place from 1975 to 1979. Within the period, more than 2 million Cambodian lives were lost, educators and scholars were specifically targeted, hundreds of thousands of survivors fled the country to seek sanctuary elsewhere (such as the US), and the rest had to endure a dark reign which they they called “a jail with no wall”- an inescapable jail no matter how far one goes. As I listened to Jewish community members rephrasing their family’s stories during the hunt down by the Nazis, I applauded their willingness to share and express this traumatic past in an effort to educate younger generations to understand and remember the sorrowful time the Jewish people had gone through. Likewise, conversations like this happen occasionally from Cambodian elders who survived the Khmer Rouge, who are always making an effort to remind younger Cambodians of the political mistakes and ideologies that led to the loss of millions of lives. My grandfather used to describe his life story during the Khmer Rouge, in which he put my father on his shoulder while holding my aunt to his chest, as they sprinted across flying bullets and landmines on a very steep mountain path. Luckily, they got away from the Khmer Rouge, but the journey going forward was challenging due to extreme scarcity of food, medication and accessories.
During the panel, I was enlightened by the wisdom delivered by the panelists who are enriched with knowledge and experiences, to which they insightfully interpreted the histories of the Jewish people into a well-constructed lesson and inspiration. Zach Ritter, VP of leadership development of the Jewish Federation, offered a great insight that “The sorrowful incidents throughout the history, even though were greatly fueled by hatred, hatred doesn’t completely explain the entirety of those occurrences. There were sizeable players who helped fuel the war-machine for the sake of their own profits and built generational wealth from the blood of million lives”. This should be an important lesson for all- that history is not just a lecture of the past, but it should be a deep reflection of mistakes as well as social functionalities that should be carefully studied in order to make a prosperous present and sustainable future for generations going forward.