Why Richard Strauss Made Me Question Humanity Today.

This morning's Music and Politics class was a lot to process. We began talking about Richard Strauss and his unfortunate circumstance of being a composer with Jewish family whose music Hitler happened to be fond of. It deeply surprised me that Hitler was fond of such a shocking and polarizing opera like Strauss' Solome, which features adultery, incest, nudity of minors, and the kissing/serenading of the decapitated head of John the Baptist. We discussed his precarious position and whether or not his involvement with the Nazis was more of selfish desires or survival instinct. The discussion was prompted by our responses to "Death Fugue," a chapter of music critic Alex Ross' provocative book, "The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century." The chapter reflects on whether or not there is a truly 'Nazi sound' in the music of early 20th century Germany.

The conversation, though, turned to music in concentration camps. This rapidly spiraled down an upsetting path that lead to harrowing stories of unimaginable cruelty. One story in particular took place in a concentration camp where the marginalized were in an exercise yard, listening to their fellow jews play in a string quartet when one woman stumbled. A guard immediately released one of his dogs to set upon the woman and tear her to shreds. "If you were the second violinist in the string quartet, what would you do?" asked Dr. Saylor. "Keep playing," responded one of my classmates, who just so happens to be Jewish.

Saylor then eloquently poised that this, this surely is true evil. Being forced to watch something so horrific and have no choice but to watch and keep playing, something that seems impossibly trivial... this is what destroys a soul. This is evil. I was left feeling entirely unfulfilled when he didn't go on to share the gospel of Jesus Christ, but that's just me.

"What is your response hearing this?" Saylor prompted. The class was silent. We looked at our books, fidgeted with pens, pulled on our scarves. I wondered if the girl next to me was crying or sniffling from the cold. What a profoundly impossible question.

My response was wanting to cry, laugh, tear my clothes, run from the room, and change the world all at once. I wanted to proclaim "Praise the good and merciful Lord that this world is not my home! I do not belong to this gruesomeness, to my own sinful nature, to the corruption of this world!" I didn't, though, and the moment passed. I put my head down on the table.

Someone else responded and said, "It seems like I am just hearing a story. Like this is a fairy tale and could never be true."

"It makes me realize that there is no way the Nazis viewed them as human beings. It is impossible to do this when you know that they are people."

Yet another said, "It makes it feel like less of a story when I realize that this was less than 100 years ago. Humanity has existed for a few thousand years, and this was less than 100 years ago."

In response, someone said "It doesn't seem real because of how far the world has come. Think about how different we are than just seven years ago." I watched Dr. Saylor's face twitch. He then brought up the United States' Japanese concentration camps, Stalin's liquidation of Jews, genocide in Rwanda, and the recent genocides in Bosnia that happened in our lifetime. (Side note, my best friend growing up was a first generation immigrant Bosnian that fled to the US when she was 5.) I nodded sadly.

I left class today feeling a dense weight in my chest. I didn't want to look anyone in the eye as I walked away, yet wanted equally to talk to everyone; for us to go somewhere and have a debrief and watch a funny movie and hug each other. Instead of any of that, I decided to create.

When something happens that I cannot process, I have to write, paint, sing, make, touch, do anything with my hands that may produce something that did not exist before. I wrote, and wrote, and prayed, and pondered. At the end of it all, I came to this:

I want to raise children who are respectful, kind, curious, and good. I want to make other people happy for the rest of my days. I want to never give up on searching for the beauty in all things, and creating my own in every little way I can. I will serve my God for the rest of my days. Anything else is outside of my control.

I may mourn the lives lost in the Holocaust, but cannot change them. I can pull my hair at the nature of the human condition and weep for society. But I cannot change it. Instead, I can love every corner of the world that my little self comes in contact with and sleep well at night knowing that the creator I serve has ransomed me by name, and that His plans are beyond understanding.





(To Dr. Saylor when you read this, sorry about all the feelings.)