History. That's what I experienced tonight.
His-story.
Who's story?
Henry Greenbaum's.
This vibrant 84 year old is a living embodiment of
OUR history. "OUR," as in
THE HUMAN RACE, so it's like:
important.
However, the University of Central Arkansas doesn't seem to agree.
UCA DOES actually co-sponsor this event; but students would never know it. And they have--sponsored this event--EVERY FREAKIN' YEAR for the last FIVE!
Yep, every year, a holocaust survivor comes HERE to share his/her story with US. What an opportunity, right? Well, it
would be if students and locals actually knew about it. Perhaps they don't know because
UCA in all of its lameness:
fails to actually let people know! Seriously?
It seems to me that whomever is donating the funds for this HISTORICAL event to take place here in CONWAY, AR
(I love you; you are a visionary!)--should be asking for heads on a platter because their dollars are only
wasted when no one knows about the dad-gum event!
I sincerely HOPE that the reason
UCA fails to promote this HISTORICAL opportunity is because some
insignificant and putrid little pencil pusher fails to realize the importance of complying with press release deadlines.
I vomit-in-my-mouth at the very thought of this MONUMENTAL AND INEXCUSABLE failure being intentional.
Either way, any UCA student that misses the opportunity to hear a story like this should go ahead and count himself ROBBED. This is the kind of robbery that is like way-worse than the kind one experiences when paying college tuition to a school that can't even equip classrooms with clocks! (I mean, what kind of univer...). :/
UCA's
oversight and neglect has caused students/victims for FIVE years to miss out on hearing and even MEETING some of the world's biggest and now most feeble heroes.
These are the poster children for the best of the best of anti-bullying campaigns! These are
survivors who
refuse to be shut up. Little elderly people who won't back down. They are so adorable, really. They are a limping-but-living testimony of the sheer will to: survive, forgive, and heal.
White-haired-and-wrinkled:
survivors of the worst of the world's atrocities, they BOTHER to come to Conway, AR and pffff, UCA doesn't BOTHER letting anyone know about it? I never was that great in math, but even I know that something just doesn't add up.
Fortunately for myself, I happened to know someone who knew someone who knew someone; so I found out about it. I used to live outside of D.C., near the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and when I found out about these precious survivors coming, I felt compelled to go.
Realizing that hers will be the
LAST generation to see a living holocaust survivor, this year, I brought my ten year old daughter. EVERYONE younger than her will most likely ONLY know of the holocaust by reading books. And if they happen to be dyslexic or grow up in Arkansas, well, they may not even read, so there ya go!
How then will we
prevent history from repeating?
Tonight my ten year old
saw with her own eyes, an aged hand rolling up a shirt sleeve and revealing a
tattoo on a forearm: a long
number which was an
identity for a significant part of a
human life. She shook that aged hand. That arm now embraces her in a treasured picture. Do you think she'll forget it?
Tonight, someone in the audience asked Henry Greenbaum, "have you ever considered getting your tattoo removed?" to which he replied, "Never. I will never take my number off. I'm going to the grave with my number. There are too many deny-ers." My daughter
heard those powerful words.
 |
Two heroes: Henry with an Arkansas veteran who attended
the lecture. The gentleman was also a liberator.
He got to meet Henry on his 90th birthday. |
My little girl heard Henry Greenbaum recount what it was like to see himself in the mirror for the first time after his liberation, but the face she heard about-the one Henry saw in the mirror that once looked like an emaciated skeleton--was not the one my daughter saw.
She witnessed a face with a beautifully bright and gentle
smile. She saw a
face of a hero.
Hearing these speakers have been some of the highlights of my 2+ years in Arkansas. I feel blessed that they come here at all, yet I couldn't help but wonder last year when I attended WHY the auditorium wasn't packed out. When I returned home last year, I searched online and hardly found any mention of the event at all.
Disappointed-yet busy, I didn't complain.
This year: a Google search turns up: NOTHING (by UCA), and to get to a posting relevant to 2013, one must click on the FOURTH result. Pathetic.
Meadors or gillean or courtway and guns? Psh. The fact that UCA withholds this educational and fleeting opportunity from students is a real
scandal.
If you read this post in time to catch Henry Greenbaum Wednesday at 7pm, and you have a human heart and brain: you will go and listen and shake his hand.
If you didn't get to this post in time and missed this very important opportunity: let YOUR voice be heard. Complain.
Something like, "
SHAME ON YOU, you, you,
withholder of truth! You just arrived at a whole new level of "
suck" in my book," or something to that effect should be sufficient.
And, in case you're wondering. No. I'm not even one bit Jewish. Or homosexual. Or gypsy, etc. Really, I'm not. I just happen to be
HUMAN. Maybe it's just me.
Please do yourself and all of us on this globe a favor...just go...shake a hero's hand, will ya?
