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"Giving Faces to the Faceless"

February 26, 2007

Shannon and Holocaust survivor Nathan Offen

His name was Nathan Offen. He was a small old man, slightly stooped, with a long face and sad, distant eyes. The room was quiet as he approached the podium and remained so while he adjusted the microphone. Once settled, Nathan paused, eyes downcast and reflective.

“Well,” he said at last, “I am here . . . because I want to tell you my story.” His voice was slow and tinged with an Eastern European accent. The silence in the small auditorium seemed to thicken, to tighten. Though in many ways we already knew his story, having heard it from so many others, we craved to hear it from his own mouth.

Nathan Offen is a Holocaust survivor, and last week he spoke about his experiences at the hands of the Nazis. When I got the email announcing his visit to Rollins, I immediately decided to go see him. This was more than simple interest. Since studying the Holocaust in American History last spring, I’ve sought to understand and connect to this horrific chapter in human history. I’ve read first-hand accounts. I’ve visited the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg. And now I’ve met, heard, and shaken hands with a survivor.

A book written by Nathan's brother Sam, also a Holocaust survivor . . .

My fascination with the Holocaust has let to a broader interest in human rights and human rights abuses, an interest I have been able to cultivate this semester. In addition to Nathan’s visit, I am taking a political science course in international human rights. Some might find the course depressing, since it reveals just how frequently and seriously human rights are violated. Yet I’m really enjoying it. For whatever reason—youthful naiveté, hopeless idealism, or a deep-seeded faith in the human potential for goodness—I am inspired by the concept of human rights. Regardless of whether they can ever be fully attained, I see human rights as a challenge for both people and nations to rise above their self interest and act in ways that benefit everyone—or at least do the smallest possible amount of harm.

A week before Nathan’s visit, a professor from Zimbabwe came to Rollins. He is in exile in the United States because of his political views, which the oppressive government of Zimbabwe sought (and still seeks) to quell. The professor spoke to my human rights class, and after class I was very fortunate to be able to have lunch with him, along with my professor and two other students. I was immensely impressed by his knowledge—which spanned several disciplines—and his courage. He described being followed, having unfamiliar people turn up in his classes, anonymous calls informing him that he was being watched, arrests on the flimsiest of charges—all things that I, in my safe little college world, simply could not imagine. His experiences were as remote from me as a distant star, just like Nathan’s.

. . . which Nathan signed for me.

This semester has presented me with remarkable opportunities to explore human rights—both in the classroom and outside of it. Class readings and discussions have given me a framework to understand the politics of human rights, and meeting Nathan Offen and the Zimbabwean professor have given names and faces to the victims of human rights abuses. I feel extremely fortunate to be in college, for I can imagine few other places where book knowledge and real life so frequently and neatly intersect.

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