Ignophobia – Nathan Mallory's Weblog

The title may be self-explanatory, but I think the expressive and adorable winner of the TISM Short Film Competition can explain it so much better! (also available in easier-to-digest Flash)

Man can render unspeakably terrible things to his own kind. Death walls and gas chambers are only ghastly instruments that remind us of what mankind is capable. Is it some twisted part of the human condition? Is our psychology so simple to manipulate? Is this capacity for moral distortion within each of us?

Atrocities are not unique to the Nazis. My father likes to remind me of Japanese war crimes committed against POWs. There is no cause so noble or philosophy so infallible that human cruelty has not made a foundation from it. Even today well meaning people of conscience are drawn to polar opposites and debate whether President Bush is a righteous man or a war criminal.

The scale and efficency of the Nazi killing machine is what shocks us so, but it reenforces what we already know: this kind of holocaust can never happen again. Even though it does, and like lemmings we turn a blind eye. Rwanda? Somalia? And how many people are unconsciously hardening their hearts against Americans on one side and Arabs on the other, or the Israelis against the Palestineans? If the dam were to break, would we again see organized slaughter of the Nazi kind?

I think far more dangerous than the mind-numbing horrors of which the preserved Nazi implements of death remind us are the horrors that even reasonable men justify. One and a half million people died in Auschwitz and Birkenau, but more than four hundred thousand human beings died in blast and fallout from the American atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is tragedy in every life lost, but where they differ is in how they are both seen fifty years later.

Aside from a few isolated fools, the Holocaust is condemned by every soul the world over. But sentiment on the two bombings remains divided, even met with passioned approval by entirely reasonable people. War is a harsh thing, and military strategy is a long way from genocide. But tell me, were the women in line at the bank in Hiroshima and the children in the schoolhouse in Nagasaki any less innocent than those who perished in the gas chambers?

P6290080 is me stroking a bell. According to Kasha, it is supposed to bring good luck to those who rub it (haven’t we all heard that before!). That and you’re supposed to make a wish as you touch (I think I’ve used that one myself). You know half the time I think the guides just make this stuff up. As if we’d know the difference.

P6290073 is definitely today here in Krakow. My sister and I are outside the entrance to the castle we went in shortly after this was taken. These castles are all nice and all, but a little stuffy and usually pretty plain architecture on the inside (the tapestries and stuff are nice, though). I really have mixed feelings about a lot of the historical sites we visit while on vacation. Preservation is great, but so much time and effort is spent trying to put us in the shoes of the people who used to be here, it makes me realize how much a shame it is that nothing better is done with these places now. It’s as though tourism is some kind of parasite, and once it finds a location, be it a palace or police headquarters or what, the clock stops, and nothing meaningful ever gets done on that location again! The ghosts of the people who once did something of substance in the places are made to haunt them forever, as the local government milks tons of cash for entry fees from tourists struggling to commune with history stroll the halls on whirlwind guided tours, too often poorly translated and too quickly forgotten. Churches seem to resist this a bit more, since services can still be held in between collecting entrance fees. But every time I wander in a long deserted palace haunted by someone very important, I can’t help wishing someone important still just lived there. Even if it meant I’d have to keep my entry fee.

IMG_2533 is just a pretty vista view from the bell tower in Krakow. You know, I really think Krakow, and Poland in general, may be one of the most misunderstood cities/countries in the world. I mean, what do I think about when I think Poland… dark, rainy, poverty, soviets, gulag, world war ii, gritty… I could go on! But the truth is quite the opposite, exactly the opposite sometimes. Both Gdansk and Krakow have been extremely green and just gorgeous weather. Today there was a breeze and I swear to god it was 75 degrees on the money. If the language weren’t some frightening combination of russian, german and something vaguely norse, I’d want to move here, or at least have a summer home somewhere, it’s really amazing.

IMG_0046… thought you’d appreciate some of the modern are that dots the Wenceslas (sp?) Square near our hotel. This is me posing with some. If I look mildly uncomfortable in it, it’s not just because I was thinking of your reaction when you saw it. I also found out the hard way that the womans massive silver knockers were scalding hot in the warm Czech sun, so I had to do the pose with only my back barely touching and my arms up off the surface. Cheers!

IMG_0019 is a pretty shot of the city of Prague. It’s really one of the more beautiful towns I’ve been to, seen from above. From inside the city it’s fairly ordinary, with the old cobblestones and really old buildings that dot most of Europe. You quickly get used to roads and doors and churches that are two, three times as old as our country, so the novelty of that wears off quickly, to me at least. My dad and I argued about it, and he loves the stuff. Me, I’ll take Tokyo over Venice any day.

IMG_0016 is just lonely ol’ me with the funky hair. My dad wanted to get a picture of the hair for posterity, so he stood on a curb and I aimed the full power of the hair at him. The blast hit him right in the stomach, and he’s still trying to recover.