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Thursday, April 29, 1993
OPINION
IN OUR OPINION
Memory of Holocaust enshrined in museum
Thousands of Holocaust survivors gathered one week ago in Washington, D.C., for the dedication of the Holocaust Museum.
They came to remember.
They came from all over. From places like Boston, Kansas City, Russia and Germany.
They came to remember the horrors of Hitler's "Final Solution." The packed railroad cars hauling people off to camps like Auschwitz or Dachau. The endless stacks of human bodies left in open pits to rot. The six million Jews and non-Jews who were murdered by the Nazis as the world watched.
They came to remember so that we might not forget.
And yet even as they came, some still refused to believe. A survey released the very week the museum opened indicated that 22 percent of adults believe the extermination never happened.
And as the crowd listened to President Clinton deliver his speech denouncing the crimes of a war of nearly 50 years ago, the atrocities of a modern war in Bosnia raged on. The irony was not lost on some.
The genocide that has been benignly labeled "ethnic cleansing" prompted Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel to visit Bosnia last fall. He has not been able to sleep since. Wiesel urged Clinton to do something to stop the bloodshed.
He also warned of the dangers of forgetting the lessons of the Holocaust.
"To forget would mean to kill the victims a second time." Wiesel said. "We could not prevent their first death. We must not allow them to be killed again."
The Holocaust Museum was built with this in mind. It is a monument dedicated to the apathy and indifference that allowed the Holocaust to occur.
And it serves as a beacon, warning visitors of the dangers of a past that must never be repeated.
CHRIS MOESER FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
King beating trial shows videotape was ambiguous
We're left with two thoughts following the verdict in the second Rodney King beating trial. First, due process thankfully has prevailed. Second, while the nation was convinced the videotape showed that King was beaten savagely and unnecessarily, two juries found the case to be a lot more difficult than it appeared.
less of a role and the jury found the evidence against them less compelling ...
The federal jury that handed down its conviction of two officers and the exoneration of two others demonstrated that they acted with care and deliberation in assessing the evidence Sgt Stacey Koon testified that he was the officer in charge at the scene of the beating — and the jury assigned him responsibility. Officer Laurence Powell administered most of the baton blows to King's body — and the jury found him to be culpable.
The two other officers played
More importantly, the jury appeared to consider just the evidence of the case rather than the implications their verdict might carry. They were not cowed by fear of what a second acquittal might mean to civil peace, nor were they out to undo the "travesty of justice" as the first trial was popularly believed to be ...
What (the second) verdict demonstrates is that the infamous videotape of a Black man being violently subdued by white police officers on a dark street in suburban Los Angeles in 1901 was more ambiguous than we all thought it was.
Which is why "street justice" and mob rule is no match for our American system of justice, as cumbersome and unwieldy as it sometimes seems.
Journal American Bellevue, Wash.
Kansan editorial board:
Greg Farmer, Vered Hankin, Jeff Hays, Val Huber, Kyle Kickhaefer, T.M. Knight, Stephen Martino, Jolinda Mathews, Colleen McCain, Chris Moeser, Simon Naldoza, David Olson, Jeff Reynolds, Chris Ronan, and Michael Taylor.
KANSAN STAFF
STEVE PERRY
GREG FARMER
Editor
GAYLE OSTERBERG
Managing editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
MELISSA TERLIP Retail sales manager
MELISSA TERLUR
BILL SKEPT Technology coordinator
JEANNE HINES
Sales and marketing adviser
Business Staff
Editors Business Staff
Asst Managing | Justin Knupp Campus sales mgr | Brad Breese
News | Monique Gulaisain Regional sales mgr | Wade Baster
David Mitchell National sales mgr | Jennifer Pierer
Editorial Stephen Martino Co-op sales mgr | Ashley Hessel
Campus KC Trauner Production mgr | Ashley Langford
Sports David Mitchell Marketing director Angela Diergen
Photo Mark Rowlands Creative director Hole Perry
Features Lynne McAdoo Clearfield mgr Bill Tovey
Graphics Art Director Dave Halgeron
Writers should be type, double spaced and fewer than 200 words. They must include the writer's signature, scribe, address and telephone number. Writers affiliated with the University of Kansas must include class and homework, or faculty or staff position.
Guest relations should be typed, double spaced and fewer than 150 words. The writer will be photographed.
Well, it's come down to the short rows now. Days are counted instead of weeks. Major papers are done, projects wrapped up. Only a couple of finals await.
Columnist reflects on uncommon education, 35 years in the making
Thanks for letting me share my thoughts with you while I've been
During this entire semester I've wrestled with two very strong emotions. One is the elation of approaching the fulfilment of a goal — not completed yet, but in sight. It was one of those improbable things, a "some-day" one never quite believes will happen. The accomplishment was 35 years in the making, much longer than most of you have lived.
STAFF COLUMNIST
I don't. I only know how much I don't know. And with that I'll be setting off on another adventure soon.
I think there's a lesson in that somewhere, for whatever it's worth. The other feeling is the "let-down" side that comes with endings. A melancholy already has set in. I try to absorb all the things I know I'll miss after graduation: the sight and smells of old familiar buildings; the sound of the carillon drifting up on the ever present wind; the after-class surge of students spreading out in all directions around me. Even the obnoxious, old steam whistle.
Several people have suggested that I continue on and earn another degree I'm tempted. it's easy to understand now some people become professional students.
820.
But no. It's time to go back to that other world, the one of time clocks — and especially paychecks. I've played long enough.
Wearing a book bag on my shoulder has become the norm. It seems strange to go anywhere without it. And I don't look forward to doing the daily heels-and-hose thing again. I love my blue jeans.
But change is inevitable, and a lot of that certainly occurred over the past four semesters.
I revel in the number of acquaintances now called "friends." Two years ago I didn't know any of them. It's hard, now, to think I'll ever forget them.
Another source of wonder to me is that so many young people seem genuinely interested in what I say and do.
When I first came here, I thought I would pass invisibly along these walkways and through my classes. That didn't happen.
Endings, however sad they might be are really only beginnings. And while it's difficult to let go sometimes there's certainty in that a wealth of memories will last forever.
What did happen was that I came to feel at home. This became "my" campus, KU became "my" school. Whoever thought I would find pride in a silly old parrot with yellow shoes?
My classes and instructors have been exceptional. Even so, I complained right along with everyone else about "so much work." Host sleep and stressed out and was totally frustrated with my inability to make perfect grades. It was great.
Cecile Julian is a Leawood senior majoring in journalism.
There could be regrets, if let them materialize in not having gone through this experience earlier. How fun it would have been to have lived in Lawrence, to have had study sessions with classmates, to have made the rounds of the righteffie spots.
But maybe I'm more fortunate than the average student for having waited so long Time has given a value to my learning and to my days here that couldn't have been guessed, years
I wish I had some parting words of wisdom for those I leave behind, some magic wand for solving problems, some foolproof method for doing everything right.
Reader clarifies historical facts about uprisings
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
A recent article in the Kansan on Apr. 19 about the Holocaust, while it was commendable on its overview of the subject that was discussed, had a factual error and an implication that could be misconstrued. When referring to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of Apr. 19, 1943, the article stated that "1,000 of 50,000 Jews fought back for the first time." In actuality, the Apr 19 revolt was the second armed uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. The first took place Jan. 18-22 in 1943. The lessons learned in the earlier revolt and the reduced physical enemy presence within the Ghetto that followed, paved the way for the more effective uprising in April. In other large ghetto, arms revolts took place in Bialystok and Vilna. There were many
armed ghetto uprisings between 1941 and 1943, particularly in what is now the western part of Belarus and northern Ukraine and what was then eastern Poland. These were in much smaller ghettoes than the Warsaw Ghetto and did not gain the recognition that the revolt in the Warsaw Ghetto attained.
Bruce Cutler
Director, Electron Microscope
Laboratory
Death of Chavez deserved attention from Kansan
I hope the Katsan can find it in its heart to forgive Cesar Chavez for having an "untimely" death. I can understand that his dying on Friday might constitute old news by Monday. However, there were 'Friday reports in Monday's paper. So try again. Mr Farmer. How thoughtful was of the Kansan to add to the report of the HALO vigil protest a short addendum announcing Cesar's death and life's accomplishments. It would be outrageous of me to assume that a full article could have been written about Cesar and what he has done for the Mexican-American and Chicano population. If I really was interested in knowing why HALO was making such a big deal out of the death of Cesar Chavez. I could go to the library and read any one of the books published about Chavez and the United Farm Workers Union.
Jacquie Fernandez
Moses Lake, Wash., freshman
who has educated people of all colors, who gave his whole life to decrease the suffering and abuse of migrant farm workers can be unnoticed by the Kansan. Does not the Kansan exist for the benefit of the readers, the students at KU? Has not Cesar Chavez had a tremendous impact on our nation, and directly on the lives of many students here at KU? I'll answer for you. Yes and yes. I realize the Kansan cannot print all current national news, but if there's room in your paper to write about people tanning at the cemetery. I would hope that there is room for Cesar Chavez.
However unfortunate for the Kansan, I happen to know who Cesar Chavez was, and what he has done over the last 30 years. And I am angry that this man who has suffered so much, who has worked so hard,
1906 FM
by Moses Smith