Comsi Comsa

[eumelia]

I was wondering if I should do a recap of 2009.

It is soon to end and thank god for that.

It would appear that 2009 was, collectively, a crap year all around the world. I suppose I should have realised it wasn't going to be good when it started with a war.

I don't know about you, but my 2009 included cancer, a war, homophobia and a death in the family. It also included a wedding and my first long-term relationship.
Not all was bad.
Just compounded with the bad stuff.

Maybe there will be more of this to come, in which case I don't know if I want to be involved in 2010.
Maybe it's the decade giving us a jolly fare-well and our Teens will see a better world.

It's been a hard year friends.
A decade I'm glad to see over.

Just before the end, The Arbeit Macht Frei sign was found. I didn't write about when it was stolen, because I had no doubt that it either never be found or would be found quickly.
Symbols are often deemed more important to find than actual perpetrators of crime.

There was outrage in Israel when the sign was stolen.
The shooter at the gay youth club hasn't been found yet, nor will he ever, I despair.
The POW/Hostage (depending who you talk to) Gilad Shalit has yet to be released along with the other Palestinian Political/Security (again, depends who you're referring to) which are used as a bargaining chip.
A piece of scrap metal bearing words in German was found and returned over the weekend.

The world fucking sucks.

Good morning.

Talk to y'all later.

Comments

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

My guess that if it hadn't been found a reproduction would have been set up, there's this whole mythology surrounding walking though that gate.

That sign, that gate has too much cultural baggage - I know I carried all of it when I was in Poland in high school.

It being stolen is no better or worse than any other act of vandalism, or stealing an historical artefact. What's there to solve? Not sure I understood your point there.

[roga.livejournal.com]

I meant that finding the sign is portrayed as some kind of happy end/closure to the story, and it's not exactly like that. To me, the issue isn't the sign being there or not being there, it's that it was stolen to begin with. I agree that the gate itself has a lot of symbolism, but I also can't really picture myself going there and thinking, "Man, too bad the sign isn't here so I can experience the visit to the camp better". I'm far more happy that they found the sign so that the thieves can be punished than I am relieved at having the sign back in its place, if that makes sense. Obviously YMMV, this is a very personal issue and everyone relates to both the Holocaust and the physical relics differently.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Does anybody actually think that? That the sign makes the visit better?
It seems obvious to me that the "happy" conclusion is that they got the thieves and vandals. The only reason this became such huge News everywhere was because it's Arbeit Macht Frei.

I think it's idiotic when someone stealing a sign is News and you find a headline like this (http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3822985,00.html) (also in (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3823173,00.html)English: in Israeli News outlets, Ynet or not.
Make up your mind, is Hitler and the Holocaust the worse things ever? Or is the everyday evil we deal with just like Hitler and the Holocaust?

I'm still pissed that a symbol was found in a weekend.