In 2008 I visited Washington, DC with Jerad. I wrote about our trip and promised to come back and write more about my visit to the Holocaust Museum. But I didn't, I just couldn't. Now I will.
Visiting the Holocaust Museum rocked me to my core. I wept as I walked through it and saw the horrific movies and pictures showing lifeless bodies in massive graves in concentration camps.
I wept as I stood in a boxcar that carried men, women and children to their death. 
Then I realized that while I was seeing this through pictures, videos and exhibits my grandfather saw this first hand. At the age of 21 he was a soldier in the 104th Infantry Division. His group discovered the Mittelbau Dora Concentration Camp. My grandfather said that there were normally 25,000 inmates in this camp, but when they were arrived there were 6,000 and 5,000 were dead. The remaining living inmates were all near death because of starvation and beatings. I can only imagine what this would do to a young man. How this must have changed him. I wept for my grandfather.
There were signs and posters throughout the museum that said "The next time you witness hatred, The next time you see injustice, The next time you hear about genocide THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU SAW." In my naivety I didn't understand. Here we were in 2008 and this kind of thing doesn't happen anymore. If it did happen then the United States would step in and do something about it. Wouldn't they? I was so unbelievably wrong. It still happens. All the time. It happened in the 1990s in the former Yugoslav Republics of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina and we did nothing about it. It happened in Rwanda and we looked on. It happened in Sudan. These are not the only places it is happening. Where is the United States? What are we doing? I was so angry as I realized that the country that I live in and love was letting people around the world be murdered.
It was then, August 2008, that I said I would do something about this atrocity. I would take action and stand up for the oppressed. Here's the truth though and here's why I never wrote about my visit to the museum. I haven't done anything. I'm ashamed as I write that. I haven't followed through with a promise that I made to myself and a promise that I feel like I made to people around the world. I can't believe I've done nothing. I was so shaken when I left the museum. So, consumed for days, weeks and months afterwards with thoughts of what I saw. But still I've done nothing.
Here is my struggle. How do I do something? How, as a mother of four small children, do I fight for the rights of the oppressed? How do I give of my time, my money, myself to stand up against murderers? In Isaiah 1:17 I am told by God to seek justice and defend the oppressed. How am I supposed to do this so that it really makes a difference?
I shop for items that are fair trade. I buy cute things for my kids that help women rescued from sex trafficking. I support my friends' adoptions. But, how can I do more? I feel like it's not enough. I feel like I am not even making a dent in the problem.
On a day when I am remembering the Holocaust I am overwhelmed with regret and sorrow for what I am not doing. For the actions that I've not taken. But I don't know where to start. I don't know what to do.
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