FUJIFILM X-T1 (14mm, f/2.8, 1/30 sec, ISO1250)
Big jump back to my “lost vacation” of 2015. Here we are in the Heard Museum in Phoenix. A museum which deals with the native people and their sad history.
This is a small but wonderful and colourful museum which is extremely important today. We all have done things that we are not proud of. Individually or as a nation. I personally have not started a World War but my country, Austria, technically started both. There is no way to deny that. Should I feel guilty every day about what my nation did generations ago? No, of course not but it also makes no sense to erase it from the history books.
Why I’m writing that? Because it seems that there is a movement in many places in the world to do exactly that. Especially in one of the youngest countries which is also oldest democracy in the world: the USA.
FUJIFILM X-T1 (14mm, f/4, 1/30 sec, ISO3200)
FUJIFILM X-T1 (14mm, f/2.8, 1/30 sec, ISO1250)
FUJIFILM X-T1 (14mm, f/5.6, 1/30 sec, ISO640)
FUJIFILM X-T1 (14mm, f/5.6, 1/30 sec, ISO640)
FUJIFILM X-T1 (14mm, f/2.8, 1/30 sec, ISO640)
FUJIFILM X-T1 (14mm, f/4, 1/30 sec, ISO2000)
But you can’t ignore what you did to the natives and later to the black people as well as Austrians and Germans shouldn’t ignore what they did even though it is a long time ago. Very few nations are free of guilt. War, slavery, genocide, colonialism. But most managed to develop into peaceful nations. The Germans, the Japanese, the Swedes.
Those museums help to remind us of what we were capable of and help to avoid that it will happen again. No matter how small and big the museum it is always more impressive than the most impressive history book. The exhibits help to keep history alive. To learn about the holocaust in a book is one thing but to visit the gas chambers in the Ausschwitz concentration camp is something completely different. Or the big room filled with children shoes of the children that have been killed there.
The most disturbing experience of my whole life. Disturbing is not right word for it. When I visited Ausschwitz about 12 years back I was alone. It was at the end of a business trip. I went there and walked through the camp on a bitter cold winter day. When I returned to my car I was devastated. On the whole drive from Poland to Austria I talked with friends on the phone because I had to share my experience and most of all I couldn’t stand to be alone.
But back to this small museum in Phoenix. One of the most touching exhibits was the hair dresser chair and the story behind it. People have to see it to understand that this must never happen again. I’m sure there is a similar museum close to where you live. Go there and visit even if it makes you feel very uncomfortable and bring your kids.
FUJIFILM X-T1 (14mm, f/2.8, 1/30 sec, ISO1600)
FUJIFILM X-T1 (14mm, f/2.8, 1/30 sec, ISO2000)
I hope that this little museum has more visitors on a rainy day though I guess there are most likely not a lot of rainy days in Phoenix. How to end this on a lighter note?
The museum was almost empty and so was its parking lot. There was an Audi Q5 and my rental, a Chevrolet Tahoe. I took this for my friends at home. An Audi Q5 isn’t a small country where I live but in the land of pick up trucks and monster SUVs it is. So we might be a little different today but our past is not.
FUJIFILM X-T1 (14mm, f/4.5, 1/900 sec, ISO200)