Colored flags call us to remember Holocaust
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Memorial makes Driscoll not-so-green
By Cory Lamz
Spring may be here, but the grass at Driscoll Green is anything but green. Right now, it’s yellow, orange, red, blue, white, pink, brown and black. Few students seem to notice.
Students eat hot dogs from Grill on the Greens while guys from the fraternities on Old Row play volleyball nearby, but no one takes a second look at a couple thousand colored flags.
As the flags ripple in the wind, people continue walking by. Only one woman stops to read the info on the sign: “Holocaust Memorial.”
The yellow flags represent the 5.8 million Jews who died in the Nazi Holocaust. The red symbolize 3 million Soviet deaths. And the orange stand for 1.9 Polish Civilians who passed.
Organized by Never Again, a DU student organization, the Field of Flags at Driscoll Green represents all those who died in the Nazi Holocaust of 1945 – which also includes people with disabilities, homosexuals, Jehovah’s witnesses, political prisoners and German-Africans. Each flag represents approximately 5,000 deaths.
“It’s good for our generation to remember stuff like the Holocaust, even though we have not been directly affected,” said Caitlin Moles, a DU freshman. Wait, we haven’t been affected directly? Who says?
If your family came from Europe in the 20th century, a flag could represent the grandmother you never knew. Another: your cousin. A white flag could be a family friend. But any flag could have been you.
The national Holocaust Days of Remembrance week began on Sunday, April 11, and will end on Sunday. Today the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is hosting its Days of Remembrance Ceremony in U.S. Capitol Rotunda featuring General David Petraeus.
This event, along with DU’s Field of Flags and the university’s Holocaust Awareness Institute, are working to help members of Generation Y, like Caitlin, come to understand that everyone in the world has been affected by the Holocaust in one way or another.
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