Memory Work

This is a bad translation of “travail de mémoire”. It’s what is is said in the French language to describe going back and dissecting history. It’s to better understand what happened, how people got to wherever they were and how to avoid making the same mistakes in the future.

I had a weekend with two sorts of memory work. I was in Ulm, Germany, meeting up with friends. One of the people in the group of friends works at a concentration camp that was open in Ulm from 1933 to 1935, and was only intended to punish the opposition, so it was communists, priests, or anyone who wanted to stand up to the Nazi party.

I love that there is interest to do this in Germany. It may not be everyone’s desire to spend part of their weekend looking at where men were tortured, but it’s important to remember, to document, to push our noses in what we accepted in the past. I say “we” here because we are all responsible for standing up for what is “right”. The definition of “what is right” is blown around from left to right, but there is no situation where torture should be acceptable.

The second type of memory work was with my friends, some of whom I’ve known for forty years. They are still there in my life to keep me honest. I want to know people who have witnessed most of the thread of my life, so I can’t rewrite things to make myself sound better or cooler than I was. Of course I think my friends are all brilliant, but if I’m honest with myself, we’re just good, kind, thinking people, who find memory important.

This blog also serves for memory work. I must remember not to take myself too seriously, because (gees Louise) I write a blog about the adventures of a stuffed cow. A cute stuffed cow. But still.