Will the Canadian Museum for Human Rights change us?

I'm not quite sure how to begin writing this blog about The Canadian Museum for Human Rights. In fact, I've sat down to try and write something three times this week and stared at a blank screen.

I think I'm having a hard time because the museum is a place that will mean so many different things to so many different people, not only in Manitoba but around the world.

I am well aware of the criticism of the museum. There have been boycotts over the content, the cost and even tears over the location on ancestral land that some say deserved a full archaeological dig.

I am in no way dismissing those concerns in this blog. I am, however, just for today, going to focus on the good that the museum could do and the hope that it might bring to our community and to Canada.

Beginning of a conversation

I believe that, at its best, the museum will become a place to think, to learn and try to understand humanity through an honest exploration of some of the ugliest moments in our collective history — those moments when human rights were violated.

I think it's the beginning of a conversation rather than a lesson that ends when you make it to the top of the Tower of Hope. At least, for me it was.

I think that many people will be uncomfortable in this museum. For me, the discomfort came when I was confronted with the worst of human nature. It also came in the moments when I was forced to assess my own personal set of ethics.

What rights are paramount to me? Do I live my life standing up for those rights, or not?

Those questions have been swirling through my head since my media tour of the galleries on Tuesday afternoon, especially because of how I have chosen to make my living.

I make my living listening to people's stories.

Hang on — let me correct that. I make my living trying to honestly hear people's stories.

Carmela's story

The distinction, for me, is critical. It really hit home when I spoke with Carmela Finkel at her apartment in Garden City.

This woman has a story that begs to be heard, and it's on display at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

Carmela was only nine years old when she and her family went down into the bunker that would save her life.

The Germans moved into her town of 15,000 people in 1941. By the time they were gone, she told me that only 27 Jews left alive. That was out of 3,200 people.

Her family of four was the only one that didn't lose any of its immediate members.

The bunker that Carmela lived in was dug into the soil beneath her neighbour's home. It was about eight feet square with bench seats carved out on either side for the family to sit on.

There was no light, no door, nowhere to walk around. She only had a pillow on her lap to muffle any sneezes or coughs. They couldn't speak to each other because German soldiers lived in a room in the house above them.

Carmela Finkel spent 20 months just sitting there in silence to survive. Twenty months.

When she came out, she was not physically able to walk and couldn't speak in a voice above a whisper for seven weeks.

An American soldier gave Carmela her first toys,  a doll and a metal stove. She told me that she played with them until she was 15 years old.

"I think what I was trying to do is have a childhood, be a child," she said.

Afraid of the dark

I spent more than an hour hearing Carmela's story but there was one point when I couldn't help but cry. And it actually didn't happen when she was recounting horrific details about the slaughter of the people in her hometown. It happened when I asked her about the lasting effects on her life because of living in that bunker.

She very simply told me with pointed honesty, "I'm afraid of the dark."

This strong woman who today can articulate every detail of what she went through with a loud voice, made confident from years of telling her story, just started pointing around her apartment and showing me the windows in each room.

She was pointing to half-open blinds.

"I never close the drapes," she said. Then she apologized for getting emotional herself (as if apologizing for that was necessary).

Carmela shared how one of her children, during their teenage years, accidentally turned out the lights when she was in the bathroom in her home.

"I just sat there frozen," she said. "I was absolutely terrified. I could see the door knob but I couldn't move … I was back in that bunker."

This, I thought, is what is really lost when a person's human rights are violated.

Yet I still wondered to myself, "Why am I tearing up now?"

Then I realized that while there is no way for me to relate to living in a bunker for 20 months during the Second World War, I can absolutely understand fear and human emotion. We all can.

"What does it mean to you to have your story told in the Canadian Museum for Human Rights?" I asked Carmela.

"It is extremely important because this did happen, but it's happening every day of the year, all over the world," she said. "Maybe by hearing these stories, somebody will decide to stop."

When I left, Carmela admitted that she was drained from speaking with me and would likely spend the afternoon knitting sweaters for children with cancer.  

"I feel that I need to give something of me to the community, and this is my way of doing it," she said.

Today, however, Carmela Finkel has given her story to our community, and I sincerely hope that everyone gets a chance to hear it.