Around 8:30pm this past Sunday, I went to view the display. It was a moving project, with giant images projected on two walls at the front entrance of the museum. But the ineffable effects of the exhibit were much stronger than the tangible ones.

The pictures were presented alone, without text; after reading and hearing so many personal stories from those affected by the violence, I could only imagine the situation of the women marching through the sandy desert, the little boy staring defiantly into the camera, or the people living in refugee camps that seemed to stretch forever into the distance. The lack of context was slightly disorienting, but it allowed the mind of viewers to wander to all of the possibilities that might create this person’s story.

And simply the idea of such a project being carried out on the walls of the Holocaust museum, commemorating the worst humanitarian tragedy of the twentieth century, resonated with me; the Jewish community has played an integral role in bring the genocide in Darfur to the forefront of public awareness and forging the fight to stop it, in large part because of the shadows of the Holocaust and our pledge of “Never Again.” The connections drawn between the two genocides by the location of this display alone helped to connect the geographical and cultural distance of Africa to a story that people of my generation have known all of our lives.

For more information on the situation in Darfur, please visit our website.