I caught myself watching Holocaust – a mini-series from 1978 on Fox Classics (it’s continuing tomorrow night if anyone’s interested). Meryl Streep and that lovely actress that plays Aunt May in the recent Spider Man movies. They’re both so very believable. And Nigel Hawthorne (of Yes Minister fame) makes a surprise appearance as one of the upper-echelon type Nazis tasked with murdering Jews at every town and village they enter. It shows how they scoff at this ridiculous order from Hitler y’s’v – but they still carry it out. It’s interesting that like in Star Wars, the ruthless, efficient bad guys are also here played by English actors by and large, whereas the good guys are American-accented.

It was of course difficult to watch.

It’s hard to believe that I’m what they were after, only 60 years ago.

I thought a number of things. I’ve dreamt about being hunted by Nazis.

In real life, there were actually helicopters outside my parent’s place tonight for a few hours- search and rescue. I said a prayer to G-d that whoever was being looked for would be found safe and sound. I thought of what it would be like with choppers chasing me with spotlights (yes, I guess I’ve seen too many movies – the Nazis wouldn’t have used them much, if at all). But I did recall the words to one song that ‘gets’ me every time I hear it, I Was Only Nineteen:

“And can you tell me, doctor, why I still can’t get to sleep?
And why the Channel Seven chopper chills me to my feet?
And what’s this rash that comes and goes, can you tell me what it means?
God help me, I was only nineteen.”

As one can tell, it deals with a war veteran’s ongoing trauma, decades after. It was on one of my Dad’s famous (to us kids) compilation tapes from when we were young; it had a major impact on me growing up.

That’s certainly what it is like to be a Holocaust survivor too. The dreams haunt you every night. My own grandmother has suffered this especially in recent years.

Part of the curse in the Torah, should we stray from its dictates, is that when the night time comes, we will say ‘please give back the day’, and when the day comes, we will beg for the night. How can a survivor close their eyes comfortably for sleep, and how can they open them in the morning? Hope? Forgetfulness? – I’m sure such things play a part.

A friend from work told me about an Andrew Denton interview she watched with her Mum on ABC’s Elders. A Holocaust survivor, Helen Bamber, was the interviewee. One thing Bamber laments is that humanity is so terrible at learning. She says the stories have to be told over and over again, and less and less people want to endure the pain of listening. She is a ‘witness to the vulnerability of humanity’, and what else is protection against such vulnerability than the inoculation of moral education? My colleague said she and her mother were so greatly unsettled by Bamber’s harrowing story. And it is – they all are, unsettling stories.

I just keep wondering, after all we’ve been through as a people, how come every Jew doesn’t cry for a few minutes each and every morning when they wake up? I’m just amazed that we all don’t ‘have it out’ every morning a little, before we put on a face for the world and everyone in it, pretending everything’s alright, and that we aren’t changed, and that we can still smile brightly, and certainly the world has progressed and isn’t after us anymore? (Because we know it’s not so).

And now I remember, there is a law, that every Jew is to awaken at midnight almost every night, and sit on the floor, put ashes on their head, and weep and mourn like we do on the 9th of the Jewish month of Av (over the loss of our Temples, and all the tragedies that have happened to us over our long history). It is codified, but few people I know actually do it. It’s called Tikkun Hatzot – the Rectification at Midnight. Rectification of our actions, of the world around us and so on.

With just a few tomes and movies and such produced, I think I’ll leave the bulk of this particular task to Elie Wiesel and others. They are eminently more capable. But these were some of my thoughts tonight. Perhaps they are indicative of what many of us – Jew and Gentile alike – think about and feel from time to time.

Academy Award winning actress Emma Thompson has become a champion in the global fight against human trafficking. Thompson has related the story of her friend Elena who was trafficked out of her native Moldova and into a life of enforced prostitution in the United Kingdom. Reading about Elena’s story is moving enough, but to walk through an exhibition of Elena’s terrifying ordeal is all the more arresting.

Journey is a traveling exhibition that is in Manhattan at Washington Place and Washington Square East through Sunday, November 15th. The exhibition is hosted by Emma Thompson, Sam Roddick, Helen Bamber OBE, and other members of the Journey team and is spread throughout seven shipping containers, each with their own theme including: Hope, Journey, Uniform, Bedroom, Customer, Stigma, and Resurrection.

Ford Models’ Art Director, Rachel Berks, had an opportunity to see Journey and shared her impression:

I would implore EVERYONE to see this exhibit. It is beyond moving. The installation brings the vivid, excruciating reality the extreme horror of human trafficking through the eyes of one woman. The exhibit takes about 20–30 minutes to walk through, and you will leave changed. I had no full conception of the reality of slavery in the modern world. This exhibit should be brought to every town, every city in the world so everyone can learn and experience the tragedy of modern-day slavery, and figure out what they can do to help.

To learn how you can fight human trafficking, please visit http://www.freetheslaves.net.

Exterior view of Journey exhibition on Washington Place in Manhattan

“People just don’t want to know about this issue – it’s hidden, it’s criminal, it’s perverse and yes, it’s happening on our own doorstep. Journey is a remarkable piece of collaborative, creative and confrontational art that profoundly challenges people’s perspective. Come and see for yourself and tell us if you agree.”
-Emma Thompson

If you are in New York this week, make sure to visit JOURNEY NYC. Produced by the Helen Bamber Foundation, this provocative art installation depicts the “journey” of trafficked women in the sex industry. Drawing from the experiences of a survivor named “Elena,” Journey is told in seven stages (each stage is designed by an artist using the interior of a shipping container as their canvas). The seven stages include:

1. Hope
– Designed by Oscar-winning film designer Michael Howells

2. Journey
– Designed by sound engineer and music producer Mick Martin

3. Uniform
– Oscar-winning costume designer Sandy Powell

4. Bedroom
– Coco de Mer founder Sam Roddick

5. Customer
– playwright Ewan Spencer and photographer Simon Stephens

6. Stigma
– Turner Prize winning sculptor Anish Kapoor

7. Resurrection
– Oscar-winning actor Emma Thompson, Royal Designer Mike Dempsey and V&A prize winning illustrator Laura Carlin

From the Helen Bamber Foundation’s website:

“Journey brings together creativity and the art of survival to show what it means to be bought and sold. It demonstrates how one woman’s story can help us understand a subject that is as painful as it is incomprehensible. Trafficking is a crime without borders. Trafficked people become illegal, stigmatized and invisible. The state of New York is a major entry and transit hub, but authorities and agencies are pouring huge resources into supporting victims and prosecuting traffickers.”

84-year-old Helen Bamber, a truly amazing woman who has worked tirelessly with victims for 60 years, will be on site along with Emma Thompson, Sam Roddick, and HBF co-founding Director, Dr. Mike Korzinski. After you make your way through JOURNEY, find a moment to talk with one (or all) of them. They are truly extraordinary people.

JOURNEY NYC can be found on Washington Place @ Washington Square East, NYC, from Tuesday, November 10th-Sunday, November 15th from 12p-8p. A trip through the installation is free and the experience is priceless.

Dentro de unos dias en Buenos Aires se va a estrenar una novela que se llama “Vidas robadas” (con Soledad Silveyra y Facundo Arana), que trata sobre el trafico de personas y robo de identidad.
Como el tema se va a poner de moda queria dejarles para que vean este video que hizo Emma Thompson, ya que ella está llevando adelante una campaña mundial por este tema junto a la fundacion de Helen Bamber.
El video es muy crudo y la muestra a Emma como 2 mujeres que fueron traficadas.

El año pasado hicieron una exposicion en Trafalgar Square en la que participé como voluntaria y que ahora está siendo exhibida por toda Europa.
Si quieren participar activamente para que cosas como estas dejen de pasar en el mundo entrando a la pagina de la fundacion pueden firmar la petición que será elevada a los gobiernos de los distintos paises.

Por supuesto que en Argentina tambien pasan estas cosas, no solo en Londres… pero en Argentina se sabe mucho menos y se investiga menos.
Esperemos que, por lo menos con la television, otra vez, se pueda echar un poco de luz sobre este tema y que la gente deje de ser utilizada para fines tan bajos y los que saben o ven algo, HABLEN.

Helen Bamber Foundation – the Reality of human sex trafficing

Partner: The Body Shop

Una grande attrice, Emma Thompson, in un grande video realizzato per la Helen Bamber Foundation, un’organizzazione che lavora con le vittime della tortura, grazie al contributo di The Body Shop e della Anita Roddick Foundation

Per chi avesse ancora l’illusione che la prostituzione sia ancora quella di Bocca di Rosa…

“Io sono Elena…”