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Past and Present, Memory and Future: Preserving Invisible History by Chelsea Racelis

I was nine years old the first time I called any book my “favorite.” The book was Milkweed, a historical fiction novel set in Warsaw during the Holocaust and told through the lens of a young Jewish orphan, Misha. As the Nazi occupation progresses, Misha does not understand what is happening: Why is there a curfew? Why can’t his friend Janina and her family live in their house anymore? Why do he and his friends have to stay in the ghetto? Why is everyone being cleared out of the ghetto and put on trains? As I asked these questions alongside Misha, this book became my introduction to the Holocaust, and indeed to the notion of dehumanization.

When I found out I was coming to Warsaw for the Humanity in Action Fellowship, it was as if everything had come full circle. I was told before I arrived that Warsaw had been bombed out in World War II, so its architecture was all built after the 1940s. Until we went on the (In)Visible History and Vibrant Present in the Streets of Warsaw walking tours, I did not realize the impact this had on the reckoning of history. The majority of Warsaw’s Holocaust sites are gone, with memorials or geographical markers in their place. Our guide, Jagna Kofta, said that these are almost like “imaginary tours” because we must imagine what once existed; it no longer stands before us. The need for imagination then suggests how readily one could forget, or worse, deny. How do we preserve history when its physical presence is gone?

Warsaw ghetto border

For the most part, any remnants of the ghettos I imagined through Misha’s eyes in Milkweed have been destroyed. The only indication throughout the city that there was ever a ghetto in its center is engraving in the sidewalk marking its geographical borders. Skyscrapers stand where the southernmost part of the ghetto once stood. One could easily go about life in the city without reckoning with this past.

Skyscrapers in the area where the Ghetto was

Perhaps surprisingly, this might have been easier before – many of the memorials and site markers throughout the city have only been dedicated within the past thirty (and in some cases, ten) years. Recent efforts have led to the preservation or restoration of some buildings to how they looked before the war. This protection of history does not happen on its own; it requires the intentional work of  committed individuals.

While beautiful and striking, memorials are only part of preserving history whose physical presence is gone. The most critical piece of preservation is the stories we tell. The monument at Umschlagplatz, formerly a Nazi holding area for Jews who were to be deported, displays the most common Jewish-Polish first names. Each of the 400 names represents 1,000 Polish Jews who were murdered, and while 400,000 is a number, Mina and Teodor and Szymek are people, with stories. Reading names moves people in a way that numbers and facts cannot, especially for those who see their own name on the wall. This past winter, I was in the Philippines visiting a monument commemorating each Filipino and American soldier who had died on the Bataan Death March in 1942. There, engraved in granite, was my last name: Racelis. My heart lurched into my throat as tears fell down my face. I have seen my own name on a wall and I can tell you it is breaking.

Umschlagplatz wall & Bataan wall

Jagna Kofta’s walking tours demonstrate the profound importance of storytelling. Had I not read Misha’s story, I might not have been able to imagine what happened here in Warsaw. In today’s political climate, it would be easy to establish a narrative about Warsaw during the Holocaust in which Polish people were not complicit. But how could this be, when the Polish Jews suffered in a ghetto almost 4 square kilometers large right in the middle of their city? The ghetto was not hidden then, and yet, it was difficult for many Polish people to accept. One can then imagine how easy it is today to deny history that has become hidden with time. It is up to every individual to bring such history forward and reckon with it.

In the video “Make Reality” that HIA Fellows watched in preparation for the 2018 fellowship, one part reads: “Reality is vulnerable. It needs stewardship and cultivation.” People like Jagna Kofta are stewards of reality, cutting away the weeds of time to reveal through story what happened here in Warsaw. History requires continuous cultivation, as it is the foundation upon which we build our future.




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Chelsea Racelis is a fourth-year student in a five-year joint degree program at the University of Michigan, studying Business Administration and International Studies. She has spent the past four years in undergrad exploring the relationship between business and human rights, doing research in supply chain ethics and founding a peer-facilitated dialogue program on identity and diversity in her business school. For two years, she has co-organized the Black-Asian Coalition, a community very close to her heart. 

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