Holocaust Project and the Power of Words

I've been working on a project we're doing in English class about the Holocaust. We have to focus on a main lesson to learn from it, along with having four other sub-topics under that lesson. Conveniently, this fits right into a Holocaust project contest coming up later this year, which I was hoping to enter.

I'm doing my project on a window, using my poem as inspiration.

My English teacher graciously supplied a window for me, taken from a barn on her farm. And it's perfect. More amazing than perfect. It is a quite extraordinary window. And I hope to make it meaningful.

Tonight, I just finished writing out my whole poem with an ink pen on paper that I had soaked in tea and burned the edges on. It filled three whole pieces of paper, and must have taken me at least an hour.

I could have used a regular pen, which would have allowed me to complete the task much more quickly. But using this pen, I had to focus on every word, every letter, every line that I scratched into the paper. I bent down close to it, I felt the rough spots in the paper, I had to dip the pen in ink again when it was running out... And the process of this is, I believe, a large part of the project's worth to me. I've completely put myself into that poem by etching its life into those pieces of paper. Yes...I do feel that the poem is alive. I feel connected to it. This process that I went through to write it is priceless - and I think it's sad that more efficient writing utensils have been developed. People should take the time to connect to what they're writing, to feel it all through their arm, and to pay close attention to what they do write. Words are a powerful thing - they can hurt, and they can heal - so they should be treated with respect.

*******

Speaking of words, today in English class, while we were working on her projects, my friend Cora uttered some very powerful words. She was making handprints/fingerprints on her board in red ink - it looked like blood. When she came back into the room after washing off her hands, she turned to me, made eye contact, and said quietly,

"It didn't come off."

I looked at her, and she looked at me, and for a moment her face looked stricken, stricken with the discovery that it just wouldn't come off. But somehow, I think she may have expected that - not directly, but she knew that a pain like that could never wash away. And then it was there, right in front of her, on her hands, looking like blood.

It was amazing in that moment because never for one second did I think she was simply complaining or making a observational comment. Between the time when the words left her lips and when they were transmitted to my brain, there was never a time when I didn't know what she really meant. Honestly, never.

I started to turn away, and then I looked back again and narrowed my eyes just a little bit, to face her and face the fact and let it sink in. Then I did turn back to my own work, and it seemed like I didn't pay attention to what she said, didn't notice, but it hit me like a freight train. I felt winded. My hand was a dead weight, my eyes empty holes.

The pain, the hunger, the suffering, the loss and the grief...they never leave you. Never.

*******

Those words were powerful to me, to my day... Those few words changed my day, my thinking, my feeling. So I'd like to say again: Words are a powerful thing - they can hurt, and they can heal - so they should be treated with respect.