 (Maxim
appears 2nd from right in the photo seen here)I
participated in the Holocaust Remembrance Project of 2004, writing about
the stealthy, yet predictable ways in which modern-day genocides
develop, and lamenting governments’ lack of will to act decisively in
the face of these signs. While I greatly expanded my knowledge of
modern-day human catastrophes in doing research for the paper, the core
of the project for me was the trip to Washington.
There, I got to meet
10 remarkable students, all of whom combined the normal hectic life of
high school students with grace and a sense of humor (we invented a game
called Tipsy, which involved tipping a paper cup into the air and
keeping it from hitting the floor for as long as possible); their
teachers, whose wisdom and encouragement I will never forget, and of
course, the survivors.
These fascinating people, who at our age were
faced with more horror than is seen by whole generations, not only bore
witness to the atrocities committed by the Nazis, but through their own
example, showed how individuals can persevere over them and triumph over
evil. Having heard their stories, who can forget Leo’s leap from an
Auschwitz-bound train, Irene’s secret Yom Kippur fast at Auschwitz,
Henry’s endurance through a death march, Peter’s memorialization of the
horror around him in his diary, or Alice’s migration on a
Kindertransport to an entirely foreign land? Moreover, when one
experiences their vivacity, the love and pride that they feel for their
families, their wisdom and knowledge (most of them know at least three
languages) that far surpasses those of most, and the extent to which
they have added to the lives of others after the end of the war, one
sees every moment of their life as a victory over death.
As he is no longer with us, and this year’s participants will not be
able to meet him, I would like to write a few words about Peter Masters,
Alice Masters’ husband, who participated in HRP in 2004. His family left
Austria for Britain soon after its takeover by the Nazis, and Peter, a
pacifist, entered a special commando unit of the British army that
spearheaded the Allied landing at Normandy. I remember sitting
spellbound as Peter told us about taking the war back to the Nazis,
staying alive in nearly impossible situations thanks to his razor-sharp
thinking, and ultimately helping “to defeat the threat of evil
incarnate,” as he wrote in his memoir, Striking Back. After the war,
Peter Masters became Britain’s first Fulbright scholar to the U.S., had
a full career in graphic design and raised a wonderful family. Well past
80 at the time I met him, he would play tennis for two hours each day,
and I remember him avidly talking with Leo about their tennis matches.
Sadly, Peter Masters passed away in 2005, but his legacy will continue
in the hearts of all who met him or read his book.
After the Holocaust Remembrance Project, I shared my experiences with my
community, distributing contest information and brochures with
participants’ essays at my school, and lending the survivors’ books to
family acquaintances. My family and I have become members of the United
States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and we have supported the movement to
bring the plight of Darfur to the attention of the world community.
Currently, I am pursuing an economics-mathematics major at Columbia
University, and hope to go to a Ph.D. program after earning my B.A. My
interests are in institutional design and resolution of market failures
– how it is possible to set up institutions like a credible currency, a
working banking system, a market for pollution, or basic enforceability
of contracts that would eventually become self-enforcing and independent
of the presence of political will. By fostering sound institutions in
developing states, it is possible to prevent them from going down the
path of totalitarianism and ethnic tensions, which continues to lead to
genocide in our time. |
