Another beautifully written essay and another one with eerie timing for me. After reading it, I visited Amsterdam's recently opened Holocaust Museum. I've been to many, this one is the most affecting because it tells the stories of the 102,000 Dutch Jews killed by the Germans and their Dutch collaborators through the mundane objects they left behind.
There are the Leiden-made buttons ground into the dirt at Treblinka and the tiny Amsterdam keepsakes buried in the sand in the Latvian killing fields. And there's the one that finally did me in: a little soap dish that belonged to a small boy who was hiding in the countryside until he was sold out and sent straight to a death camp. Inside were the little stickers he liked to collect.
So yes, those found items in drawers may well have stories we could never imagine.
Objects are never mundane. Which is why the drawers will remain stuffed with them. And why “random” buttons, stickers and soap dishes can still rip your heart out today.
I have found myself in similar situations with not being able to part with certain things. And all the things add up to alot of stuff. If you have the room and need to not have things staring at you day in and day, pack them lovingly away as you make room for new things in your current space. Then in time you can decide what is a must keep. There is absolutely no timeliness.
Another beautifully written essay and another one with eerie timing for me. After reading it, I visited Amsterdam's recently opened Holocaust Museum. I've been to many, this one is the most affecting because it tells the stories of the 102,000 Dutch Jews killed by the Germans and their Dutch collaborators through the mundane objects they left behind.
There are the Leiden-made buttons ground into the dirt at Treblinka and the tiny Amsterdam keepsakes buried in the sand in the Latvian killing fields. And there's the one that finally did me in: a little soap dish that belonged to a small boy who was hiding in the countryside until he was sold out and sent straight to a death camp. Inside were the little stickers he liked to collect.
So yes, those found items in drawers may well have stories we could never imagine.
Objects are never mundane. Which is why the drawers will remain stuffed with them. And why “random” buttons, stickers and soap dishes can still rip your heart out today.
I have found myself in similar situations with not being able to part with certain things. And all the things add up to alot of stuff. If you have the room and need to not have things staring at you day in and day, pack them lovingly away as you make room for new things in your current space. Then in time you can decide what is a must keep. There is absolutely no timeliness.
Thanks Jean. I think it’s going to, um, take a while.