I sometimes wonder what has happened, over the years and decades and centuries, in the very spot I happen to be. When I’m standing in my kitchen, washing coffee rings out of one of my seemingly endless supply of Doctor Who mugs, am I standing in the same spot where a mother stood 50 years ago, washing the dishes from her child’s breakfast? When I’m standing by the river, looking over at trees in Gatineau, am I standing where an Indigenous man stood to catch fish hundreds of years ago? When I’m stopped at a red light, is my car in the very spot where some prehistoric Mega~bear got into an epic fight with a giant Dino~cat? (My knowledge of prehistoric species isn’t awesome.) I’ll never know, but it’s neat to think about.
I know I’ve definitely stood where people suffered, and where people died.
On November 7th, our Prime Minister apologized for Canada turning away the MS St. Louis in 1939. Over 900 Jewish people from Germany were on the ship, trying to find somewhere where they would be safe. Canada wouldn’t take them. They were sent away. The captain wouldn’t take them back to Germany, because he knew they would die if he did. He took them to other parts of Europe, where he hoped they would be ok. Some of them were. Some of them ended up back in Germany. Some of them were murdered in Auschwitz. Which means I might have stood where they stood when they suffered. Maybe I stood where they fell when they died.
I went to Auschwitz a few years ago. I’d wanted to go for a long time. Since then, there have been times when I have violently wished that I’d never gone. It hurts so much to know that my feet have been in the same spot as someone who was scared in a way that few of us can comprehend. I have walked on pathways that were the last place someone walked. In all likelihood, I have stood where someone took their last breath. Knowing that makes me feel a pain that I cannot describe.
When I watched video of the apology in the House of Commons, when I watched NDP MP Guy Caron say 254 people could have been saved if Canada had said “yes” in 1939, I cried so hard my chest hurt. And I kept crying, because I know there are people who would want that ship turned away if it showed up on our shores tomorrow.
Some of the people who get turned away now, in Canada and all over the world, will die. A hundred years from now, someone will stand where they died. I think this will probably repeat until the sun explodes and eats the Earth, because very little of what I’ve seen of human behaviour lately has convinced me we’re any better now than we were when we turned that ship away in 1939.
