It seems like an oxymoron to be a Jew and be a “fan” of Auschwitz, but there are thousands of such fans.
They’re not fans of the infamous concentration camp, but rather “fans” of the Auschwitz Memorial page on Facebook. The Auschwitz Museum in Poland launched the page earlier this week, and museum officials have since posted on it historical facts about the Holocaust, a discussion board and a photo gallery.
“If our mission is to educate the younger generation to be responsible in the contemporary world, what better tool can we use to reach them than the tools they use themselves?” Auschwitz Museum official Pawel Sawicki told Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot.
The Auschwitz Museum first reached out to a younger audience online with a YouTube channel earlier this year.
Other Holocaust memorials and museums, such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial and museum in Jerusalem, have already branched out to Facebook, but none as successfully as the Auschwitz Memorial, which has already surpassed the number of fans of the other two.
The Jewish blogosphere is abuzz with reports that Madonna has plans to take her children, Lourdes (12) and Rocco (9) to Auschwitz, when the singer visits Poland as part of an upcoming tour. According to a report initially published in the British Daily Mirror, but circulated widely in the Jewish community by Ynetnews, a source close to the signer says that “It won’t be an easy trip but it is an ultimate life affirming experience, and one Madonna — because of her strong Kaballah [sic] beliefs [sic] – does not want to ignore.”
It’s easy to criticize Madonna’s choice. Is nine too young to understand the gravity of the holocaust? (Not according to my grade school teachers.) Is anything connected with Madonna and/or Judaism and/or Kabbalah to be treated with derision? Personally, though, having just returned from a trip to Auschwitz myself (see related ‘Polymath’ column), I think the decision is a sound one. It’s all well and good to study Kabbalah and mysticism on sunny summer days – but can your theology and spirituality withstand the truth of the holocaust? And while the subtleties of Nazi genocide may well be lost on pre-teen kids, the general narrative will not be.
I just hope Madonna also gets to enjoy the sights of Krakow – there’s a great nightclub called “Kitsch” that I think she’d enjoy, plus the grave of the RaMaH, a great Torah sage. I guess there aren’t that many people who would appreciate both – but I bet Madonna would.
