Remembering The Holocaust...

I have a recurring dream that symbolizes what the National Writing Project has done for me as a writer..."Reach below the surface," echo the voices of my National Writing Project colleagues, "Dig deeper".

- BETH HAMMET, The Voice, Vol9 No2 '04

“ A writer is someone who sits in front of a computer all day, eyes glued to the screen, fingers flying across the keyboard, churning out bestsellers.” False. I am definitely not that kind of writer. I live a very colorful life.

Same time last year, I was at Howard University Graduate School of Education attending the Summer Institute which changed my life. Since the beginning of the DC Area Writing Project's Invitational Summer Institute I met co-teachers who, like me, are not the stereotype writers. At the same time during the summer 2004, we all fell in love with words and how they fall into stories on page. The transformation was amazing. I found myself a writer surrounded by writers. We would share each other’s manuscripts and discuss openly about them. We would laugh. We would cry. And we would celebrate everyday by writing.

We wrote in any way ---

We wrote poems.
We wrote reflections.
We wrote journals…

***July 6, 2004, Trip to the Holocaust Museum (excerpt)

The class went for a field trip to the Holocaust Museum. It was the first time that I really got a tour of the museum. It was the first time too that I got a bigger overview of the World War II. I never really understood what the Holocaust Era and the Nazi regime was all about, until now.

Throughout the tour I was having goose bumps. It never occurred to me that somebody could be as cruel and evil as Hitler. Anti-Christ. That is the exact word for him. I never understood why my husband’s grandparents migrated from Germany to the Philippines until now. My husband is half-German. Here’s the story…his grandfather who was the Consul (Labor Attaché) of the Philippines to Germany, married a pure blooded German. They migrated during the 1940s in a boat. I couldn’t imagine how they sailed from Germany to the Philippines, half the world, in a small boat. It was impossible, until I saw the pictures of the Holocaust. I was teary eyed while I was thinking about all these. The 18-hour plane ride from my country was exhausting, how unbearable was it to sail half of the world in a small boat?

Another scene was playing in my mind when I saw the “Death March” and the concentration camps – the Philippines under the Japanese regime. The exact thing happened to my country – Japanese soldiers to the Filipinos were like Nazis to the Jews. Filipinos were tortured and executed and was eventually liberated by the Americans with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

I was feeling heavy and depressed all throughout the tour. Just seeing the artifacts and the pictures was unbearable. I don’t know how I could have survived the holocaust if I had lived during that era.

***July 14, 2004, “I Had to Write” (excerpt)

This morning’s journal exercise gave me a jumpstart to compile all my poems and manuscripts since I was in elementary…now I have a long term project. I may not be able to be a published writer but I will have a legacy to leave my children. I want it to be an inspiration for them. Could be something like: My Lifestory According To Me.

*****************

CONGRATULATIONS to Pinoy Teachers Network members who are graduating on July 28 from the same NWP Invitational Summer Institute at Howard University: Irene Taguian, Sonette Carzon and Michelle Ignacio. Welcome new DCAWP Teacher Consultants. YAN ANG PINAY!