Numbers

This is an updated version of a Facebook "note" I wrote earlier this year. I was reminded of it this morning as I began reading "The Zookeeper's Wife," a story based in WWII Poland, and decided to post it to my blog.


Sometimes, looking at numbers is the only way we (or maybe just I) can attempt to truly comprehend the scale and totality of major historical events. World War II is this way. We know so many were murdered, but it seems that the more generalities we hear about it, the less we understand the gravity, which is always dangerous. As a history major with a focus on modern European history, I have heard and memorized so much about World War II and the decades surrounding the war that over the years I (unwittingly) adopted a deadened mindset, an emotional detachment to the staggering facts that emerged after the bloody dust settled - until I took Jordanna Bailkin's wonderful "20th Century Europe" class. Below are some of the more shocking overarching statistics Professor Bailkin presented that really reinstated that sense of terrible awe that we must always keep with us if we are to keep these horrors from happening again. As Churchill himself pondered in 1947, "What is Europe now? A rubble heap...."

In the Warsaw Ghetto, 0.5 million people were crammed into 1 square mile.

1/3rd of the Jewish population of the WORLD was killed in the war years.

66% of all WWII deaths were CIVILIAN (compared to 5% of WWI deaths).

The Soviet Union alone lost 23-26,000,000 people, and 70,000 Soviet villages were totally destroyed.

After the war, the average Soviet lived on 600 calories per day.

Britain had 60,000,000 changes of addresses because of bomb damage.

90% of German houses were uninhabitable post-war.

90,000 German women in Berlin alone sought medical treatment for rape after the Soviet invasion.

14,000,000 people were on the road in the summer of 1945.

There were 11,000,000 people categorized as Displaced Persons, and the last DP camp could not close until 1957.

Boxes

     Today I finally (I moved home June 12th... I am a procrastinator) decided to seriously do work on my many boxes of stuff from college. The 10 or so good-size cardboard boxes, obstructing any moderately-easy entry into my room, have been a constant source of frustration the past few weeks, concerning movement, visual appeal, and, most annoyingly, time management - I have been late to multiple appointments because I couldn't seem to find anything despite my careful packing.

     Getting rid of the boxes seemed like a daunting task. However, since I'm generally an all-or-nothing kind of person at least when it comes to organizing, I naturally believed that the other even larger boxes and bins encircling my room, from my pre-UW years, had to be seriously re-evaluated as well. I set about tackling everything, haphazardly moving back and forth between emptying the new boxes and organizing the old containers, one filled with Whitman memorabilia, the ones under my bed containing treasures from my childhood I had clung on to and then hidden away in high school.

     When I organize, I organize, and I love it. Yet my afternoon was bittersweet. I promised myself I would throw away anything and everything that had ceased to be truly meaningful, but as bag after bag of garbage filled with school newspapers, event fliers, sermon notes, and the like, so too did my heart overflow over and over again as I carefully placed each important item I decided to keep into its respective small box. It's amazing how memories - startlingly sharp, often carrying smells, static snapshots, sounds - can surge up out of the wilderness falsely known as "forgotten," not actually lost but merely waiting to released, relishing the surprise and emotions they can so easily evoke. A few movie ticket stubs; a heartwarming letter of affection, still in its envelope; messages and pictures scrawled on a napkin; loving notes of encouragement from hard times, from holidays, and sometimes just because... all of these and many more I stacked into the boxes I will save. I want to detail all of them here, to describe the memories (many hilarious, some heart-wrenching but just as important) attached to each, to thank personally in this blog post the many amazing Nohitas, INN-goers and leaders, Whitman Kappas and sectionmates, high school friends, neighborhood gals, and besties in general, for how important they have been in my life, each of whom I missed sorely one by one as I opened the boxes of my past. I have always been one for reminiscing, for shoutouts and inside jokes. Yet I know that this task would be almost as impossible as finally making my room presentable once again, and definitely less personable being on the internet, so I promise myself I will let them all - you all - know somehow, sometime soon, how much they - you - have meant in my life. And, hopefully, will continue to be. Today, wading through my room, warmed by the rare sun sparkling the dust that seemed never to settle, listening off and on to Pandora's "Lollipop" station (the Chordettes, not the Lil Wayne version), I realized again for the first time in a while how truly blessed my life has been.

     To conclude, as I went through the last of a stack of documents I had constantly been adding to over the past two years, I discovered a single sheet of paper that I think all the student leaders received at a retreat Sophomore or Junior year. The top of the paper reads, "Who God Is," and the rest is filled with words and corresponding verses. "Abba, Advocate, Almighty, Alpha, Ancient of Days"... the list was long. I glanced at the back - and noticed my handwriting. I had taken chosen words from the list, and, during a time of reflection, had written what each meant in my own life. The notes I made really encouraged me today, as I sat in my sweats in the midst of half-empty boxes, stacks of papers, and piles of clothes, worrying about my future and finally beginning to comprehend that a huge irrevocable change was happening in my own and in my friends' lives. This is what I wrote:

"God is an apostle, therefore he teaches me.
God is the author of life, therefore my life is written and known.
God is the bread of life, therefore I am fed.
God is the bright morning star, therefore I am led.
God is the carpenter, therefore I am lovingly crafted.
God is the chief shepherd, therefore I am watched and guided with care.
God is the cornerstone, therefore my life has a firm foundation.
God is the beginning and end, therefore I have nothing to fear."


Apparently, God also knows how to speak to us right when we need it. :)

 

...and just for good measure, because this memory is one I will NEVER forget: