In Their Footsteps

Retracing My Roots
Screamers Post

Gates To Hell

All my life I have had a conflicted relationship with the idea of Germany. When I close my eyes and think of that country all I can see are those images of my ancestors... emaciate, tormented, and waiting for the release of death. When I think of the German people I still have a hard time thinking of them as anything in particular. Yet when I think of their country... hate is the only thing that describes it.

Its odd how the legacy of genocide does that...


When I walked toward that crematorium a part of me couldn't help but feel the weight of where I was headed. My soul ached as the thoughts of my family who had made this walk before me rushed through my mind. Though their footsteps had been on Croatian soil, the fact that I was in Germany didn't make the pain any less. I had planned to visit Buchenwald because I felt it would somehow be easier than seeing the place my own family had been sent to die. Yet it wasn't... nothing prepares the heart for that long walk. Nothing prepares the soul for being there. Nothing.

Backtracking...

My family came to America by crossing through Europe till they finally found their way from the old world to the new. They were even poorer than I am now. Yet they did everything they could to make sure that their children and their children's children wouldn't have to live through that hell again. Spending every penny they had, those who could, they got out.

I wasn't born into freedom by chance. There has always been someone before me who fought to keep hope alive. I knew that the moment I boarded that plane and left for Germany. I knew that I was going back to a place my forefathers had struggled to leave. 

Those hills covered in blooming mustard were the things old painters dreamed of. The little villages tucked up along the hillsides with gentle streams all trickling back toward the Moselle River... that was the Germany my family crossed through. They passed those vineyards, those little countryside farms with sprawling pastures, those wooded valleys... none of which they could stop to enjoy. Yet there I was in this land that caused their pilgrimage out of Dalmatia. 

My journey would take me from London, the place that was too full for them to stay, to Germany, the place that had created hell on earth, to the home of my family. It was a short, yet bumpy, journey backwards through time. It was my way of going back to the places that made me who I am today. 

Almost Heaven

I arrived in Croatia in the dead of night. Zadar was only a short drive north of my family's old homeland. Yet the transition from that somewhat flat patch of land to those sacred mountains was evident to me even in the midst of that pitch black night. I felt like I was home in the shadows of those rocky mountainsides. 

Just south of Split I found where home was. Along the edge of the Adriatic, tucked up alongside olive trees and rocky outcroppings, I found where my family had lived all that time ago. Rosemary bushes and sage jutted upward from every spare patch of dirt those boulders of mountains seemed to offer somewhat reluctantly. This was heaven to me... almost. 

That first morning when I put on my tallit and prayed I couldn't help but think of how I was the first one in my family to be back here doing just this... It was a moment when my prayers stopped for just a moment as the reality of it all sat in. It was a moment where all my heart could find no better words to offer my Creator than a simple thank you. 

Walking out onto the balcony I stood there and looked over the sea and let it all sink in. To one side there were those mountains reaching out into the sea like and outstretched arm. To the other side was the sleepy village clinging tightly to the steep drop from the mountain road above us. For all it's beauty, for all the awe that had filled me... the sight of those mountains still reminded me why I was there. 

My family had been taken up into those very mountains. The Ustase had attempted to cleanse all of Dalmatia of it's Jews. Up in those mountains they had taken my ancestors to what could have been the end of my story. Those who didn't die there were sent north to camps. And those who were lucky enough to escape did everything they could to evade death as they walked the line between Bosnia and Croatia. 

I don't know the every detail of where and when the family members that did perish actually fell. The brutality of Croatia's genocide makes some things impossible to know for sure. But I do know the story of those closest to my own bloodline. And those were the stories that came to mind as I stood there looking up into the rocky faces of those mountains. That blood was still, in my mind at least, tainting this place that looked so much like paradise. 

Most of those who had lived here were killed outright. Those capable of making the journey north were later sent to Auschwitz and/or camps in the Ukraine. They weren't seen again. Between what the Ustase had already done and what Germany would do to them, they seemed to disappear into the industrialized death machine Hitler had created across Europe. Their stories are ones I still am searching for to this day. 

The one woman who's blood I still carry to this day did the unthinkable... she fought back. 

Surviving the pogroms, the rape, the torment, the wilderness, and Tito's war of liberation... her blood carried that desire to fight. Her legacy, her stubbornness, her tenacity; all of these things still linger even though she has long since passed away. 

I know I'm here today because when one person had every reason to surrender, every reason to just lay down and accept what seemed like fate, she decided to stand up. I'm here today because her unwillingness to look away from the suffering of her people in their greatest time of need. I'm here because in her darkest hour she decided to hold her head up high and do what she knew was right. 

She lived through things that I don't understand. She did things that I can only hope I would had been strong enough to do if I was in that same situation. She saw things that I'm not sure I could bare to see first hand. And yet here I am today.

Chasing Ghosts

When I left Croatia I knew that the hardest part of this journey was still ahead. I was going back to the Germany. And this time I was going to a place I hated more than anything else. This time I was following in the footsteps of those who stolen from us. This time I felt like I was chasing the ghosts my family had left behind. 

I had told myself that visiting Buchenwald would be different than actually finding the camps where they were taken. It would somehow be better than actually having to stand in those places where they were gassed, where they were worked to death, where their lives were forever extinguished by the hatred that had engulfed this land. Yet the moment I passed through those gates.... that moment when I ran my hand over the tattoo I had gotten to across my wrist to remind me of them... a part of me broke. 

We had walked along the railroad tracks that had carried prisoners into Buchenwald. Every time I blinked I could almost hear the carts rattling as their damned cargo struggled to breathe inside those cramped quarters. I glanced over to the parade grounds where the soon to be dead had once gathered to hear their death sentence. 

I looked to my right and saw the chimney reaching upward into the cloudy sky above. Rain trickled down across my forehead as my hair clung to my cheeks and the back of my neck. I couldn't help but think it was fitting that G-d had given us a rainy day upon which to visit such a wretched place. I almost thanked Him for setting the mood that had already settled over my heart days before. 

Then came the walk I had been dreading. I turned and headed straight for that crematorium. It was the longest walk I have ever taken in my life. What was barely 50 yards away felt like it was in an entirely different world all of it's own. Every step felt like I was going backward. Every heartbeat felt like it was breaking down what little strength I had left. And yet the realization of how many had made this trek before me made it impossible to pause. 

German Citizens Forced To Face

What Was Done In Their Name.

I entered the same way my ancestors would had done all those years ago. The stairwell down into the gas chamber was right there ahead of me. There was no way to mistake this place for showers. In Buchenwald the Germans hadn't tried to fool anyone that was forced to walk down there. This was simply a stairway down into the slaughter house. 

I entered the doors above and first went into the rooms where German doctors had performed experiments and lethal injections. Their tables were designed to catch the blood of their victims so as to make clean-up easier. There were still markings along the wall to measure their victims. The instruments of their torture chambers were still preserved. The methodical way in which the Germans had documented their callous crimes was evident everywhere you looked. 

For me however, this was just my way of easing into what still awaited me down the hallway. Just beyond those rooms sat the entire reason for this building. Rows of furnaces lined one side of that wretched place. These gates to hell were flung wide open for all to see just how the victims were cast away forever. A cart stood there to show how the task of disposing of a corpse was made only slightly easier... so as to speed the process up. 

When I entered that room I froze right there in front of that first furnace. For moments it didn't matter that there were people walking behind and all around me. For those moments all I could see was the open mouth of that tomb where flames had consumed my people. For those moments the world around me seemed alien. The hatred that had led to the creation of this place surrounded me. The stench of it still felt like it permeated that space regardless of how much time had passed. It was as though every soul that had passed through that gateway still cried out... pleading that we never forget. 

I finally found my place in time and the strength to keep walking. 

Down those stairs I went. 

Standing there in that gas chamber I felt like the family I had never known was suddenly fresh in my memory. I might not have been able to say that this was were uncle so and so had perished. But the thought of how many had found themselves in rooms like this was still there. The realization that this country, Germany, had put them in places like this was right there with me in that moment. Looking up at the hooks where their clothes had been hung before the gas was dropped in... I couldn't help but think about them. 

They may have died in camps to the east. This might not have been the room in which they were killed. And they may have very well been placed in open pits and burned in the open air. But this was the most common ending place. And this was the end for me.

A Never Ending Journey...

Walking the grounds of that camp I prayed that G-d would give me some understanding of why... I prayed that I could find some reason as to why this had all happened. I prayed that I could understand why this continues to happen. I prayed for the strength to keep up the fight my ancestors had left burning in my bones. 

It has taken a month of thinking about those prayers to find anything that resembles reconciliation with why I needed that trip. My ancestors may have perished almost an entire generation ago. They all may very well now be history to this world. But the struggle they had been forced into has not become history. That fight continues. And maybe, if only for my sake and the hope of making some sense of all this, just maybe... those who they left behind are the ones who should be fighting hardest. 

Looking toward Syria, Burma, North Korea, and all those darkened parts of our world; I can't help but think that those of us should be following in their footsteps...

Unlike them, however, we don't walk defiantly into the gates of hell this time. Instead we rush toward those killing fields to make sure that the next generation of survivors has a voice... the voice our own ancestors were almost denied. This time we stand between the persecuted and their tormentors. This time we intercede where others had failed to do so when our ancestors needed it most. 

The most astonishing thing you realize when you stand in places like Buchenwald is just how close these killing fields were to houses of common German citizens. The smoke from that chimney would had drifted over the village just downhill from Buchenwald. The people living in the shadow of that camp could not have escaped the reality of what was being done just one the other side of the treeline. 

Today the world has grown smaller. Killing fields are often just on the other side of our computer and television screens. Bosnia and Rwanda happened as the the world watched. We didn't have to have American GIs force us to walk past piles of dead bodies like in Buchenwald. We get nightly updates, we get tweets, we get news broadcasts... the death toll is always there on display. 

Looking toward those killing fields I can't help but think that this journey I've been on doesn't have an end. The legacy my ancestors left for me... this endless fight... that is something that this trip reminded me of most. 

Alder's Ledge takes it's name from my own family's history. We only exists as an organization because of what was done to my ancestors. We are only here because of the fire that burns within my bones... my soul. It is a fire that many of my staff have been given by their own ancestors as well. It is a legacy that we can't turn away from. And all we ask now is that you join us.

Want to know more?

Contact us on twitter: @alders_ledge & @AL_Staff

Bullets For Words

(PLUCK series)

Kike 

Nigger

Chink

Fag

Goy

Beaner

Hebe

Christ Killer

Coon

Cracker

Sand Nigger

Guido 

Paki

Gypsy 

Haji

Raghead

Spic

Wetback 

Yid

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. 

Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” 

~ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

All of these words have a certain way of hitting home for at least one or more members here at Alder's Ledge. They are cheap shots that we deal with daily. While out in public, while online, and even at home from time to time; these words have a way of falling upon the eardrums like a grenade. They sting like fire upon the soul as they prick at the flesh and drive up the will to fight. For each of us here at Alder's Ledge they are of course just words... but when we hear them they are like bullets.

Over the years of running this blog and maintaining a team of dedicated screamers we have endured every slur we could imagine and then some. At times we have had to look up a slur just to figure out what exactly we had been called. Yet for all the abuse we get we still remain dedicated. Our fight, our passion, our fire continue to grow as we work toward exposing genocides both past and present. 

As we have taken to one social media outlet after the other there is one thing we cannot ignore, no matter how hard we try. And that is the aspect of friendly fire as activists all around us take to the fight ever so viciously. While we applaud the effort, there is something to be said for turning our words... our bullets... upon our own.

Cannibalistic Peace

Outlets like Twitter are often nothing more than battlefields. Machine guns replace fingertips as bursts are set forth in 140 character bursts. And once those gun bursts are shot off for all to see, where there is no chance of taking them back, the person who fired first has no way to retreat. Whatever they felt was so important to merit their attack, either intentional or incidental, is permanently flying out there in cyber space. 

When it comes to activism on Twitter the machine gun is fed constantly with a chain of bullets offered up by the masses. This has the power to be used as a tool in fighting for justice. And yet it, like any weapon, has the capability to be turned on it's own. It is this aspect of firing off careless words in support of good causes that turns what could had been a good effort into friendly fire. 

For the main author of this blog that is highlighted mainly with the persistent mingling of the phrase "Zionism" with Judaism. This flirtation with blaming a collective over highlighting the individual makes sniping a religion more prevalent than attacking those who abuse it for their own advancement. It denies the diversity within Judaism, and yes... even the diversity amongst Israelis, so as to lump the target into a faceless mass where it can be culled. 

When you look at the use of one's words in this aspect the characteristics of war can be applied to every engagement. Whether we are truly trying to bunch up those we view as opponents or rather over simplifying the matter at hand doesn't make much of a difference once the first shots are fired. Once blood is drawn there isn't an opportunity to turn back.

For our Buddhists who work on this blog there is then the Rohingya issue that boils up hate speech targeting them. Most of our team members here who happen to be Buddhists are from Thailand and China. So the collective terms applied to them are not only applied through religion but geography as well. This helps every shot to sting just that much more as they delete our daily barrage of comments (note almost all comments are deleted anymore due to hate speech). 

"Buddhists in Burma have killed over 30,000 & raped women in front of their brothers for being Muslim, Those are the real terrorists."

 "Buddhists burn Muslims alive in Burma, yet we are the terrorists, right?"

"*All-h will punish Buddhists."

 

These are just portions of comments that often are seen in tweets as well. They are obviously hate filled rhetoric to us here at Alder's Ledge. Though some are founded out of a growing siege mentality amongst a small portion of Muslims we talk to, the hate behind them is unmistakable. And it is the hate within these excerpts that draws the battle lines and makes peace impossible. 

Our Buddhists team members are dedicated to combating the genocidal acts currently being perpetrated against the Rohingya and Kamen Muslims of Arakan, Burma. Many of our Buddhists team mates have worked with refugee agencies in their homeland and even within Myanmar. They practice their faith through their service to others, and this includes all religions and any ethnicity.

With that said the endless bombardment of their faith due to the hateful actions of a small minority within their faith. They have often expressed the feeling that their faith is singled out daily due to these individuals who wish to exploit Buddhism for nationalism rather than faith. For me personally, the irony of this feeling is something that can't be ignored. 

Buddhism and Islam both are supposed to be religions of peace and tolerance. When Muslims shoot off their opinion filled hate slogans against Buddhists it creates the same reaction these same Muslims have when being called terrorists. The sense of being attacked for their faith only rallies their will to resist and resist with unmistakable force. 

Yet retaliation should never be seen as justification by any means. 

Just because a certain individual decides to fire back doesn't mean that you were right all along. It means that much like you, the other person is simply human as well. When fired upon while trying to help the first reaction isn't to keep offering support but to rather withdraw and then counter attack. No human being is designed to run up a white flag when all they see around them are enemies. It just isn't natural. 

This creates a situation where those who are supposedly seeking peace are being subjected to friendly fire. The people that once welcomed them are now the ones sniping them from every direction. And just as it created a siege mentality in one community it creates much the same in the other. 

As the white flag comes down the flames go higher. And it is in this sort of fighting that we degenerate from peace on into cannibalism.

Irreversible Harm

Our team is comprised of thick skinned individuals. We take every abuse that comes with doing this job. And for the most part, we don't complain. Yet over the past week we have experienced the irreversible harm this friendly fire can create. 

Words are exactly like bullets in the sense that at times they do have the power to kill. 

A few weeks ago we posted an article called "Opting Out". The subject was important to a dear brother and friend who recently lost his battle with his demons. This struggle was one that many of us here at Alder's Ledge deal with or have dealt with over our years. It is a painful fight, a relentless siege of the mind, that those who fight it try desperately to hide. For that reason we decided to scream for those who are overcome by it. 

None of us were ready for him to leave us. But we don't get to go back and say goodbye. All we have now is the job to carry-on. Forever fighting, struggling, and screaming... just as he would be if he were here today. 

After writing that post with me our dear friend watched as hate mail began to pour in almost immediately. Most of what we see after post like that one aren't mere bullets but more like mortar shells. They have a way of eating away at our image of what humanity aught to be. They throw up dirt and smoke all around us as the hate clouds any sense of hope in our fellow man. 

Due to this the comment section is closed. 

We may never know why our friend left us. We may never know what those last moments were like, what was going through his head, or why we couldn't help. But I do know that the words he read, those he heard daily, and those we see constantly as a team all had their affect on how this ended. 

Before Pulling The Trigger

We all have a responsibility when it comes to speech in any form. The words we let loose are forever present in the minds and hearts of those who hear them. They have the power to heal or the power to kill. While a gentle word is like honey upon the lips of those who preach love and peace, those same words can be made harsh and become poison dripping from those same lips. 

In activism we have a responsibility not only to our own self but our cause. By firing off words tainted with hate we not only hurt those around us but damage the very cause we are trying to help prosper. With every word we speak out of anger, frustration, or hopelessness we create hostility in those we are supposed to be trying to reach. 

Before we speak, tweet, or update a status there should be a moment of questioning. We should think about how this will help or hurt our cause. We should think about how those who read or hear our voice will interpret what we are saying. After all, it isn't how we want to say something that really matters but rather how our audience will hear it and just how it will set upon their minds and hearts. 

We aught engage our audience with words that tug at their heart strings and not ones that burn like hot lead. This is how we win the battle for hearts and minds... with love, not hate.

*Note that the author of this blog post does not spell out the name of G-d due to religious observance.

Where Is The Love In Burmese Buddhism?

Love? What Love?
(part of The Darkness Visible series)

(Monks Patrol Meikhtila As Military Watches)

When Buddha was a young man he sat at beneath a large tree and watched as the peasants prepared the fields for the planting. Instead of worrying about the hunger of his people, the Buddha thought to himself about the plight of the worms in the soil as the plows turned over the land. If the crops were not planted the people would starve to death. But that did not cross the Buddha's mind as he worried about and animal that can survive being cut in half. To the Buddhists of today this is supposed to represent his love for even the least of these. But I ask what love? 

It is hard to imagine any person, regardless of his supposed deity status, thinking that the life of a single worm was more important than the lives of millions of starving humans. It is a self righteous behavior that has become characteristic of the Buddha. While he had everything provided for him the people beneath his "enlightened" state died of hunger. So once again, what love? 

(Helix058 Is My Account On Instagram, This Is Burmese Hate)

"Parasites"... "Termites"... "Cockroaches"... 

Is this the love of which Buddhists speak? Is this the compassion which Buddha supposedly held for the worms? What if the worms had been called "parasites"? Would the Burmese still refer to Rohingya and other Muslims as such? 

When a people forget the morality that helped shape their culture they forget the soul of their culture. Stepping away from love and compassion brings us to the brink of catastrophe. It takes us beyond the point of no return... it drags us to place where we no longer recognize the people we once were. This is the hate with which Burmese Buddhism has been poisoned. What love was once there is trapped beneath it's heel. The hatred for their fellow man now replaces the love of which Buddha spoke. 

The parable of the worms and Buddha was much more than mere self righteousness. It was meant to show that at times when we think we are helping others, performing a task greater than ourselves, we often hurt others without knowing. Buddha showed that with other ways of doing the same task we can often avoid the casualties of even the least of these (those society rejects or abandons). 

If Buddhism is to ever heal in Burma it will have to learn to exercise resistance to the hate that has worked it's way into Myanmar's culture. The racism, bigotry, and intolerance must be dealt with in ways other than the killing and ostracizing of an entire portion of the population. Those who have introduced this disease must be dealt with also. The sickness must not be allowed to govern the politics of a nation. In approaching this problem in this way, Myanmar must recall that the illness of one man changed the way Europe thinks today. Had Hitler's disease not been permitted to take hold, Europe and America might have been able to avoid the Nazi's "Final Solution". 

But none of this can be accomplished or even worked on until the country of Burma decides to first abandon its policies of extermination and religious bigotry. Until the blood stops flowing this disease can not be contained. The love that Buddha tried to spread can not be achieved as long as hate is allowed to rule the hearts and control the minds of the Burmese.