In Response to: ‘Should the Holocaust be laid to rest?’

This is an article in response to Holocaust Memorial week and two television programmes concerning The Holocaust – the recently-screened documentary, ‘Night Will Fall’ and  Sunday morning’s discussion programme ‘The Big Questions’.

The phrasing of the interrogative itself – ‘Should the Holocaust be laid to rest?’ -  on this morning’s ‘The Big Questions’  stung like an insult. The idea of ‘laying something to rest’ implies the pacification of feeling, even forgetting, which I believe the exact opposite of the attitude we should take when addressing the Holocaust.

There has been much recent media debate in terms of memorialisation – for example in terms of the poppies exhibition at the Tower of London regarding the soldiers tragically killed in World War One.  The argument here seems largely in terms of representation – it is right to turn lives lost into a ‘visitor attraction’ or spectacle? Yet what I witnessed last night on television was not spectacle but raw reality – the screening of a previously unseen documentary based on eyewitness footage of the Nazi work and concentration camps. ‘Night Will Fall’ is a documentary compiled in conjunction with the Imperial War Museum, based on the original camera-work of World War Two soldiers and Sidney Bernstein, who had been commissioned in 1945 to create a ‘historical record’ of what was witnessed during the liberation of the camps. The film was originally titled ‘German Concentration Camps Factual Survey’, to be overseen by Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, hauntingly in itself, this was a documentary originally ‘laid to rest’ so to speak as deemed, in the words of one survivor  feared to ‘be a political inconvenience’ at a time of attempted European conciliation post-war.

It is through the work of the Imperial War Museum and the screening of the documentary on Channel Four , that we have been offered insight into the turbulence of the truth. The paradox of the orchards outside Bergen-Belsen shown shortly before the fields of countless corpses inside. In the words of the narrator of the documentary, piles of female bodies like ‘marble statues’ , piles of human hair and hacked-off jawbones from which even the teeth were removed. This is a human tragedy which cannot be laid to rest as the victims were not themselves given the dignity of ‘being laid to rest’. The footage shows American and British soldiers  attempting to bury bodies through mechanical means in mass graves – bodies which had been wiped of identity, decency, dignity.

As image after appalling image emerged, I felt increasingly numb. The continuous  view of corpses seemed almost unreal, bodies bent beyond recognition, mere skin over bones.  These were people treated inhumanely. To forget them would  be inhuman.

My numbness and shock slid to anger on watching ‘The Big Questions’ this morning. Under the question ‘should the Holocaust be laid to Rest’ – there were a number of panellists concerned that other examples of genocide or other groups involved in the holocaust do not get the same recognition; a strange experience almost in terms of the argument of comparative suffering. All human suffering by the means of genocide is appalling. Then surely the question should not be ‘should the holocaust be laid to rest’ but ‘how can we remember it?.’ Rather than limiting discussion of The Holocaust in terms of labels of ethnicity or religion – the holocaust should be seen in its awful reality, as the result of intolerance, injustice and oppression.

In turn, to simply ask the question ‘should The Holocaust be laid to rest?’ is to fail to take action. In regards to ‘How should the holocaust be remembered?’ is to take action – just as the Imperial War Museum have done in allowing this documentary to be produced. This morning, in ‘The Big Questions’, a human rights campaigner pointed out that homosexuals were also victims of the holocaust, disabled people were also victims of the holocaust.  When these themselves are potentially underdiscussed issues, people still persecuted,  how can the holocaust ‘be laid to rest?'

The victims of The Holocaust were varied individuals, they led colourful lives, they were mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, lovers. Yet the tragic commonality of their experience was that they were deprived of their human rights, their humanity, due to unjust intolerance. These people were deprived of their freedoms, deprived of their ability to act. That is why the Holocaust cannot be ‘laid to rest’ – because we ourselves have a responsibility to act for all those who could not. We can act to eradicate intolerance in its many forms, for the holocaust incorporated intolerance in many forms – an intolerance of (but not limited to) the Jewish race, of homosexuals, of travelling people, of the disabled – groups and communities targeted by an ideology lacking humanity. This is not about pinpointing a single race, or a set of statistics. I believe that ‘Night Will Fall’ is a film about the fight of what it is to be human, as etched on the faces of the inspirational survivors interviewed – and to be human is not to ignore it. To be human is to take steps to eradicate the intolerance which did not give a chance to others.

That is why the holocaust cannot be ‘laid to rest.’ To rest is to fail to react to injustice and intolerance.  And that is why in attempting to increase our engagement in  campaigns which call for greater tolerance, in whatever way we can – whether human rights activism, religious activism, mental health activism  - we can allow this commutation to expand, far beyond the screen, and into society. You have  the choice of  whether  to watch ‘Night Will Fall’  or not – but the victims of the holocaust were stripped of choice. Over the years, different people made different choices in regard to how the documentary material of the concentration camps was dealt with – The Americans clipped the footage for a much shorter propaganda film under the direction of Billy Wilder, some chose not to show it all. But it is important that for those of us that can choose to act, we can make a difference – whether it is working for rights on a community, national or international level, we can make the choice towards eradicating the evil of intolerance.

I am attempting to end the discrimination against the mentally ill in my community - http://www.mind.org.uk/news-campaigns/campaigns/time-to-change/ . What will you do?

Although weight can be shifted, so can the shame

It has been difficult not to notice the increased media attention recently – in regards to weight. The subject of obesity appears a particular favourite – with accompanying television programmes such as ‘Katie Hopkins: My Fat Story’ and ‘Outweighing the Enemy’ .  These shows attempt to project weight as a terror to ‘tackle.’ And why not?  In light of statistics that In the UK, 67% of men and 57% of women are either overweight or obese, according to the Lancet Medical Journal, it could appear that the media is feeding from what is certainly a social concern. It is a concern so apparently acute this includes being bombarded with images of various states of undress; women  weeping in their underwear in front of a camera, Katie Hopkins exhibiting her swollen stomach, and so on. However, this undress is leaving something unaddressed, I believe. In portraying weight as something to be ‘tackled’, like a terror to triumph over, this is ultimately leaving the psychological foundation unaddressed. Cultivating shame in regards to weight refuses to feed the mind with what it really needs.

Too often weight is presented as a spectacle. Too often this is presented as ‘acceptable’.

I am writing this as someone who has faced issues with eating. It is a subject personal to me after all, weight is a personal thing – and throwing it as something to be ‘tackled’ almost seems to advocate a fight with the self. Take Katie Hopkins for example. In her recent documentary ‘My Fat Story’, Hopkins gained an unhealthy amount of weight in a very short time ( up to half her weight in 4 months) – in order to demonstrate that it indeed can be lost again. Indeed, we already know that weight can be gained and lost and having a media figure advocating it with lines such as ‘I hate all you fat people’ and  the calls of 'you chubsters’ are not necessarily encouraging. Considering her comments about weight in general, it appears (though this be my own opinion) that Hopkins was not particularly compassionate despite her determination to diminish human bodies. An area increasingly appearing unaddressed, (rather than undressed) is the psychological issues underlying eating behaviour. It seems almost convenient that the television can make only the external the issue.  Admittedly, in the programme there was reference to a psychologist who discussed the potential factors behind Hopkin’s competitive, even cruel attitude towards weight – but then again, the notion of competition still continued.

What I saw was saddening – both in terms of Hopkins and the emotions she was apparently evading. Here was a woman going against her own apparent principles (her views on healthy eating and exercise) in a course not of illumination, but humiliation.  Still her comments continued ‘I hate you fat people’, stirring again and again the factor at the very centre of the issue - shame. Indeed, many peoples eating behaviour is determined by shame, with what are regarded as ‘abnormalities’ in eating behaviour being especially the case. The reason many people overeat involves features of shame – such as turning to food as comfort from insecurity, having poor self-esteem and continuing to eat, feeling afraid to exercise out of embarrassment, television programmes and articles circulating this continued shame towards bodies and their ‘management’ like it is a competitive task is not constructive. And it is just not the case for obesity. This culture of competitive conditioning  of bodies harbours an unhealthiness towards food, if anything. It advocates that food is not something to be appreciated and enjoyed, but controlled and counted. Such patterns of control and calculation underlie many unhealthy relationships with food, especially in regards to eating disorders.

It is an especially disturbing consideration in accordance to young people who are especially vulnerable to the masquerade the media can provide. According to Schools and Students Health Education Unit, about 40 percent of 10 and 11-year-old girls in the U.K. want to lose weight. That number rises to 54 percent for 12 and 13-year-old girls and to 63 percent among 14 and 15-year-olds. These are ages at which children are also especially sensitive to their own changing bodies ,and the bodies of those around them – and ‘shame’ is one of those emotions we should not want to see becoming associated with natural growth and development. Food has its own particular power to evoke a fondness, especially when reflecting upon childhood favourites – I used to love the slow ceremonial eating of my grandma’s chocolate cake on a Thursday afternoon in primary school. And food can evoke a love which can continue – without the label ‘fat’.

Yes, Televising the issues of weight and weight management may be a way some people see of ‘getting it out in the open’, but I feel that the real issue still lies under wraps. What many people are doing as they unpeel the fickle foil from the chocolate bar, as they wait for the sudden punctured pop from the bag of crisps – is waiting for some kind of comfort, some kind of confirmation. A person’s relationship with food is governed so significantly by the mind -  and yet  the mind appears something the television seems to shy away from. Katie Hopkins' continued name-calling, Christian Jessen’s  ‘Weighing Up the Enemy’ leave only a bad taste, adding to food as a fear factor, something to be afraid of.

Furthermore, for the majority of people with weight issues, unlike Hopkins and the contestants on ‘Weighing up the Enemy’ or similar programmes where losing weight comes with a financial incentive – many face financial worries, may struggle to afford gym memberships or even the time to embrace regimes which are advocated as ‘accessible’.  Hopkins claimed "My project was to prove that all the excuses for being fat are nonsense — and it is proving that" – and this is exactly where the falsehood lies. Hopkins perhaps showed emotional vulnerability as she teared-up in her programme and talked of the negative emotions she felt by being overweight, but neither did she confront the emotional issues as to why people eat what they do, when they do. It is easy to advocate a conceptual regime of ‘eat less and move more’ but what if those comparative terms of ‘less’ and ‘more’ seem only bewildering to a mind which is too depressed to fully comprehend, set in a body it fears and despises?

The word ‘regime’ itself I hate – it emphasizes a lack of accessibility in it’s very self. What is accessible is actually embracing food and its emotional connections. If a person is unhappy with their weight, it is highly likely that they are not fully enjoying their experience of eating – feelings often thickened with guilt and displeasure.  Many people have become trapped in cycles of consuming for comfort, unsure of any way out. In turn, this is why I believe the current media focus upon advocating ‘shame’ in regards to weight and food is only worsening the problem. Instead, by advocating healthier alternatives and by showing food as something which can be enjoyed in a variety of ways, this offers a much more constructive approach . Why not now? I can see no harm in opening minds in this way, but in continuing to shame and shock people into ‘controlling’ their weight (simply the succession of verbs shows how negative it is), the underlying issues of anxiety and insecurity will only continue to swell. That is why  I am determined, even in the days where the depression is difficult, to post a picture or recipe which makes me smile – we should be spreading ideas about eating and showing that a healthy lifestyle can be accessible and is evident when the individual is content in themselves, rather than saturating the screens with shame.