Nazis drove through my town today.
In school, you learn about the Holocaust like a dream; it is far away, untouchable, cushioned by our own American hero’s journey. When I took a Holocaust in Literature course here at Ohio University, or when I read books written by German, Polish or Jewish people, instead of textbooks, written by people just like me, some of the distance — the layers of protective wrapping surrounding my mind from things it simply cannot understand — fell away.
I thought I knew better what it must have been like in Nazi Germany. I was wrong. Nothing could have prepared me for how I feel today. I am not saying that we are Nazi Germany. But I am terrified that we are the before, and I feel powerless to do anything about it.
Nazis drove through my town today. My town.
I know it’s clichéd to only get this upset when it finally directly affects me, but there is something about knowing that the streets you drive on have been tainted by red, white and black — by hatred. There is something so very physical about it. Their sheer proximity weighs me down in a way I could not have known until Nazis drove through my town.
I have many other things to do today, and every day, and I don’t know how I’m going to do them, or whether I should do them, or whether it is ethical to do anything else but bleed at a time like this — bleed and wonder why you haven’t been bleeding all along.
I am despairing, but I don’t want that to douse my anger or to make me impotent against this hatred. I cannot let that happen. We cannot let that happen.
I want to be loving and caring, I need to be those things, but if it comes down to a choice between a loving, empathetic, useless person and a spiteful, furious, useful one, I will choose the latter. I must. I owe it to everyone they are trying to silence — to the people they do not consider people.
I am angry. I am sad. I am wrung out of words and feelings and everything is empty, except one trembling, metallic echo: Nazis drove through my town today.
Megan Griffith is a second year master's student in creative writing at Ohio University.
