Opinion

JENNIFER CALFAS

EDITOR IN CHIEF

AARICA MARSH 

and DEREK WOLFE 

EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS

LEV FACHER

MANAGING EDITOR

420 Maynard St. 

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at 

the University of Michigan since 1890.

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s editorial board. 

All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Thursday, November 5, 2015

Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Ben Keller, Payton Luokkala, Aarica Marsh, 
Victoria Noble, Anna Polumbo-Levy, Melissa Scholke, Michael Schramm, 

Stephanie Trierweiler, Mary Kate Winn, Derek Wolfe

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

Remembering, not rationalizing, the Holocaust

REBECCA TARNOPOL | VIEWPOINT

M

y 
grandmother 
was 

always moving. It was in 
this way, and in others, 

that she wasn’t 
(and never pre-
tended to be) a 
“sweet old lady.” 
At 
her 
wake 

almost a year 
ago, someone I 
didn’t know very 
well came up to 
me, patted me 
on the shoulder 
and told me that 
my grandmoth-
er was “such a 
sweet old lady.” As I maintained the 
same sad smile I had worn for the 
past three hours or so, I knew that 
this depiction, though well inten-
tioned, simply wasn’t accurate. Yes, 
she played bridge regularly, didn’t 
really know how to work e-mail and 
always had candy out in Waterford 
crystal bowls in her condo’s liv-
ing room. But once you got to know 
her, she was far from demure, meek 
and unassuming — nothing like the 
“sweet old lady” some people remem-
bered her to be.

My grandmother was surely kind-

hearted and sensitive to her core. 
However, she was also bold, unapolo-
getic and infectiously enthusiastic 
about practically everything she 
devoted time to. To her, one of the 
worst things in life was to be stag-
nant. She regularly volunteered as a 
docent at the Nation American Muse-
um of History, which is a Smithson-
ian institution, and on weekend visits 
with my mother and sisters, she nur-
tured my love for history by telling 
me stories of how she felt when JFK 
was shot and what it was like to live 
during the Cold War, all while briskly 
strolling through exhibits. We had a 
lunch reservation to catch, of course.

She also worked relentlessly to 

continue broadening her horizons 
through books, magazines, news-

papers and movies. Although she’d 
sometimes call me and my cousins 
for help on a particularly “millennial” 
New York Times crossword puzzle 
clue, she always seemed to know more 
about current events and pop culture 
than I did. I vividly remember when 
she broke the news to me that Justin 
Bieber was arrested for drunk driving.

She was always moving, whether 

it was voraciously through books or 
quite literally across the globe. All 
while over the age of 60, she careened 
through Old Delhi in the back of a 
rickshaw, climbed nearly 500 feet 
above ground across the Sydney Har-
bour Bridge, tossed water off a hotel 
balcony onto unsuspecting tourists 
in Florence, observed lions while 
on safari in Botswana, attempted 
to push the Leaning Tower of Pisa 
back in place for a goofy photo and, 
while sitting firmly next to me, sped 
through Denali National Park in the 
back of an off-road Jeep driven by 
my uncle. She was both excited and 
exciting, and being close to her meant 
having the privilege to listen to her 
adventures, stories and advice, all of 
which I eagerly consumed over regu-
lar lunch and dinner dates.

On top of all this, my grandmother 

was one of the most beautiful, ele-
gant and glamorous women I knew. 
She lived and breathed “look good, 
feel good” and refused to succumb to 
most, if not all, old-lady expectations. 
She favored her Stuart Weitzmans 
and Ferragamos over more practical 
orthotics, and always smelled subtly 
of Chanel No. 5. Going grey was sim-
ply not an option, and so she visited 
Andre Chreky, once the hairdresser 
to First Lady Laura Bush, for a regu-
lar cut and dye. Anyone other than 
her grandchildren simply could not, 
and did not, call her “Grandma,” and 
rest assured, she’d kindly (but curtly) 
correct you if you did. And even when 
she eventually became so sick to the 
point where she couldn’t walk more 
than five feet without feeling weak, 

she refused to be seen in public in a 
wheelchair. End of story.

But this glamorous and unapologet-

ic outer shell did not signal a self-cen-
tered and cold core. My grandmother 
was, in fact, endlessly warm and pas-
sionate — about her family, her friends 
and generally life itself. And this was 
despite the sudden and utterly unex-
pected loss of her husband, my grand-
father, at 54. Although I hadn’t been 
born yet, I knew that she’d never even 
fathomed being widow in her 50s, and 
that this cruel reality turned her world 
upside-down. By the time I was old 
enough to fully grasp what had hap-
pened, my grandmother seemed to 
once again possess the world’s most 
positive outlook on life, even when 
hers had been so abruptly interrupted 
by tragedy.

She constantly reminded me to 

keep everything in perspective and 
to remember that this too shall pass; 
her personal story stood as a testa-
ment to this. She was genuinely and 
truly invested in my pursuits, my 
happiness, my health, and when she 
held my hand and asked, “How are 
you doing, dolly?” I knew she wanted 
the real answer — even when it wasn’t 
the easiest thing to hear. She seemed 
to be enthusiastic and engaged in 
nearly everything my cousins and I 
did, and her affinity for white wine 
and board games was only rivaled 
by her love of smiling, laughing and 
rejoicing in the warmth of family.

Although this past year without 

my grandmother hasn’t been the 
easiest, I take solace in the fact that 
every day she stays with me, deeply 
embedded in my own sense of self. 
As I pause to remember her one year 
later, I can almost feel her tapping 
on my shoulder, reminding me not to 
dwell too long. She wants me to keep 
moving through life, just like she did, 
and to never, ever sit still.

— Anne Katz can be reached 

at amkatz@umich.edu.

ANNE 
KATZ

Remember, then keep moving

“S

i fueras un animal, que animal 
serías?”

“If you were an animal, 

what animal would you 
be?” my GSI in Spanish 
232 asked the class.

Because I take ques-

tions like this seriously, I 
thought it was a bit unfair 
that he was expecting 
us to answer with such 
a limited vocabulary. On 
an average day, I would 
struggle with this ques-
tion in English. On a good 
day, I could name only a handful of animals 
in Spanish. As we went around the room, cats 
and dogs had already been picked a few times 
apiece, and while I liked dogs more, I could 
relate better emotionally to cats. I could not 
make myself pick either.

“Un pato,” I answered. A duck. In the middle 

of Spanish class, I had quacked (bad puns make 
the world a little better). My teacher arched his 
brow, questioning my answer, my sanity.

“Si,” I replied. 
I breathed. I needed the oxygen. Who had I 

become in my life if I was now best compared 
to a duck? What were the redeeming qualities 
of a duck, anyway? They have waterproof feath-
ers and walk in a pseudo-graceful dance. Their 
babies are cute, but most babies are rather ordi-
nary that way. Ducks are not exactly fierce and 
beautiful dwellers of wild habitats. They are 
also, I quote from a friend, “rather messy and 
did not make a good house pet.”

I spent my weekend thinking about ducks. 

I carved one into a pumpkin Friday night, 
drew cartoons of them into the margins of 
my anthropology notes. Ducks trailed behind 
me as I wove through the tables in the din-
ing hall, and their webbed toes stepped into 
puddles after my rain boots did. Though I did 
not yet know the reason, I had to believe there 
were more worthwhile attributes of ducks.

According to the unreliable Internet, ducks 

seem to represent everything from freedom 

to upcoming life transitions. As diverse as 
the results were, adaptability was a common 
theme. Through my irritation at the inconclu-
sive symbolism, I realized this searching for 
an answer was more than glossy green birds 
or plastic yellow bath toys. This was about 
why my feeling of self-worth now depended 
on the worthiness of ducks to be at the fore-
front of my mind. 

Lately, I have been incessantly evaluating 

myself. Needless to say, I did not pass my own 
judgment in the “uses time effectively” category. 
Time, now that I admit it, was at the root of all 
of my self-appointed problems. I spend too much 
time reading. I call my mom way too often. I sleep 
later than I should. I did not fully take advantage 
of a beautiful October. Time is not to be wasted.

As these thoughts began to invade my every-

day, my skepticism of larger life choices also 
became more prevalent. Why am I studying Eng-
lish and anthropology? As of now, I have no clue 
where that will get me in life. Am I wasting four 
years? What makes what I am doing worthwhile? 
Once one questions the very decisions that make 
them who they are, one finds themself stumbling 
further — what makes any attribute or activity 
more worthwhile than another?

Worthwhile (adjective): such as to repay 

one’s time, attention, interest, work, trouble, 
etc. (Thanks, dictionary.com.)

Lately I have been so afraid of time, I have 

been trying to use the dictionary in an effort 
to achieve precision of language. (I have read 
Lois Lowry’s “The Giver,” where they refrain 
from using words like love, yet still I continue.) 
However, this activity is extremely harmful to 
me because I do not spend enough time talking 
as it is. I do not need to focus on clipping the 
hedges around what I say. In fact, I think I need 
to water them. (I do not garden.) Which brings 
me back to the definition of worthwhile — when 
does what I say become or cease to be worth-
while? There is neither specific measurement 
nor unit to measure in. The broadness of the 
definition allows nearly all possibilities, seem-
ingly forcing me to create my own definition.

After discussing my semi-crisis with a 

friend— from ducks to being worthwhile — she 

PAYTON 
LUOKKALA

Earlier this year, I spent a morn-

ing at the senior residence center a 
block away from the high school I 
attended. There, I met Ben, who sat 
alone in the residence’s dining hall. 
Ben had lost much of his memory 
with age, unable to recall such sim-
ple things as what his sons do for a 
living or where his grandchildren 
attend school.

But one thing came up again and 

again in conversation. Ben would 
lift his left wrist, point to the faded 
numbers and recite from memory:

“I was in Auschwitz. My number 

was 138…”

The Holocaust has been a focal 

point of recent politics, between 
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin 
Netanyahu’s statement that Haj 
Amin al-Husseini — one of the first 
major Palestinian leaders — was 
responsible for the “final solution,” 
to Republican presidential candi-
date Ben Carson’s remarks that the 
effects of the Holocaust would have 
been relieved if the Jewish people 
were allowed to have guns. In light 
of these comments, it’s more impor-
tant that we remember the devasta-
tion of the Holocaust than try to 
assign the blame to any ethnic or 
national group. Worse yet is when 
people downplay the significance 
of the genocide by suggesting how 
theoretical situations could have 
alleviated at least some of the suf-
fering faced by the millions of vic-
tims, Jewish or not.

My family was lucky: Three of 

my four grandparents were born 
and raised in the United States, 
and my maternal grandfather and 
his family fled Poland before the 
Nazi regime took over the country. 
Only my Jewish heritage ties me 
to the genocide. But my ties were 
strengthened last May, when I had 
the opportunity to visit the very 
camps that forged experiences so 

horrible that they remain vibrant in 
even the most fractured memories.

Auschwitz-Birkenau 
was 
the 

first camp I visited. My arrival at 
the camp evoked more of a cog-
nitive dissonance than any over-
whelming emotion. It wasn’t until 
I was physically there that I real-
ized nothing I experience now will 
allow me to truly understand the 
circumstances people were dis-
posed to in the camps.

Even the tangible items — the 

rooms filled with an endless sea of 
kitchenware, shoes without own-
ers, human hair collected from vic-
tims — could not and still cannot 
make up for the time that separates 
me from the harrowing reality of 
the camp. Time has claimed the 
barracks and gas chambers that 
populated the massive complex, 
leaving Birkenau mostly in remains. 
Time has removed me from the 
clatter of arriving trains, the shouts 
of German guards, the confusion of 
tongues, the booming of gunshots 
and replaced such wretched noises 
with silence. Time has turned the 
site of war crimes and mass mur-
der into a sort of tourist attraction, 
complete with shops that line the 
way up to the “Arbeit Macht Frei” 
sign in Auschwitz I (and not to 
mention, free Wi-Fi therein).

The next day I visited Chelmno. 

Chelmno, though established for 
the same purpose as Auschwitz, 
was a different world. The entire 
camp consisted of two buildings, 
an establishment especially tiny 
when compared to Auschwitz, yet 
it claimed the lives of hundreds of 
thousands of Jews by way of gas 
trucks. This is the reason Chelmno 
has no visitors: Few people have 
heard of it, since so few people sur-
vived its wrath.

Chelmno’s burial site is a clear-

ing in a forest located a couple miles 

outside of the camp. It too was 
silent, the only visitors being myself 
and my classmates. The scene was 
especially haunting since evidence 
of the Nazis’ crimes pervades the 
area. But the stages of natural suc-
cession have already begun to swal-
low the memorial grounds, weeds 
and grasses growing irreverently 
around the graves.

I realized there that while the 

evidence of the Holocaust glares 
at us today, it may not be there for-
ever, and the prospect of a world 
without survivors began to scare 
me. If I, as a Jew, felt a disconnect 
between the history of the camps 
and the way that history is memo-
rialized, I could only wonder what 
impression the camps make on 
someone who has no connections to 
the atrocity of the Holocaust. Soon 
there will no longer be people like 
Ben, whose faded numbers imply 
stories unspeakable yet invaluable 
to the preservation of history, of 
memory. It’s very possible that in 
20 years, Auschwitz will merely be 
another museum, Chelmno, anoth-
er forest. And with the number of 
misguided comments made about 
the genocide in the last few weeks, 
it’s all the more important to real-
ize the Holocaust may become no 
more than a rhetorical device used 
to vilify another party.

I, therefore, feel a responsibil-

ity not only for myself, but for my 
entire generation — perhaps the 
last generation to have the privilege 
to interact with survivors — to con-
tinue the memory of those who died 
for remaining loyal to the values we 
have freedom to practice today. It’s 
on us to continue this memory so 
the world may never forget the dev-
astation caused by the Holocaust.

Rebecca Tarnopol is 

an LSA freshman.

T

he World Health Organization released 
a jarring report Oct. 26 that identifies 
processed meat as a group one car-

cinogen — meaning that it 
has a firm link to cancer. 
This finding adds traction 
to the Meatless Monday 
movement, which encour-
ages individuals to not eat 
meat on Mondays in order 
to improve their health and 
to promote environmental 
conservation. On a weekly 
basis, University Dining 
hosts Meatless Mondays 
at East Quad. University 
Dining presents Meatless 
Mondays at East Quad as a 
public health and environmental conservation 
initiative; although altruistic, the fact that stu-
dents attending this dining hall on Mondays do 
not have the freedom to choose whether to eat 
meat or not brings about questions of the role of 
the University in limiting food options.

Meatless Mondays are an example of the 

extension of the University’s public health and 
environmental initiatives in the food realm. 
Other initiatives include choosing Michigan 
farmers for vegetables, fruits, honey and milk 
served in all of the dining halls, with East Quad 
additionally serving meats less than 250 miles 
away from campus. This allows for fresh and 
local ingredients to be served in the dining 
halls, while also reducing the carbon footprint 
that would be created with large transporta-
tion distances. This initiative does not con-
troversially inflict a limitation of choice upon 
students: Yes, students are less likely to have 
honey in their tea from across the Atlantic, but 
having locally grown honey has few drawbacks 
for students if the University can negotiate 
ingredients at a competitive rate that does not 
alter meal plan costs. Furthermore, University 
Dining has paired with a company known as 
Sea to Table that helps the University find sus-
tainable fishery suppliers. Yet again, having fish 
that comes from sustainable and eco-friendly 
suppliers does little to have cause for students 
to object if costs are not significantly increased.

However, Meatless Mondays go much fur-

ther than these other initiatives because meat 
consumption is such an intrinsic and natural 
act for a human to engage in. We are omnivores, 
and although some choose to become vegetari-
ans (5 percent of Americans according to a 2012 

Gallup poll), the vast majority of University stu-
dents and Americans consume meat on a daily 
basis. In fact, the Wall Street Journal calculates 
that the average American adult who consumes 
meat eats about 0.36 pounds of meat a day. Meat 
provides humans with essential proteins and 
fats that facilitate survival, so the tendency to 
consume meat is functional and healthy, but 
of course damaging if overdone. The World 
Health Organization highlights in their Oct. 
26 report that consumption of 50 grams (0.11 
pounds) of processed meat is linked with an 18 
percent increased risk of colorectal cancer. Yet, 
this increased risk is a relative risk increase, 
meaning that it does not include personal risk 
factors such as pre-existing conditions and 
age in its calculations. The National Cancer 
Institute’s colorectal calculator does not even 
include risks for those under the age of 50.

University Dining mentions the association 

between meat and cancer on their webpage 
explaining Meatless Mondays, a notable con-
cern, but not a sweeping public health concern 
considering that the association is only proven 
for people consuming meat at ages far exceed-
ing the mean age of a Michigan student.

Furthermore, the notion in itself that stu-

dents’ access to meat should be limited over-
steps a previously established boundary. The 
University of Michigan Dining website includes 
pages that provide explanations of accommo-
dations for students with special nutritional 
needs or dietary constraints from religious 
observations. This ideology is compromised 
when East Quad only serves vegetarian options 
on Mondays, not accommodating the majority 
of students who eat meat on a daily basis.

Considering that the association between 

colorectal cancer and processed meat con-
sumption for those under the age of 50 is not 
proven, the public health justifications do not 
seem to outweigh the University’s own aim 
to accommodate all students. After all, dur-
ing various religious holidays with dietary 
restrictions, University Dining strives to 
accommodate religious students but does not 
universally eliminate access to meat and other 
foods to all students. Meatless Mondays at East 
Quad exemplify a doctrine of public health and 
environmental sustainability being pushed 
onto students at the expense of student agency 
in food choice.

— Ashley Austin can be reached 

at agracea@umich.edu.

ASHLEY 
AUSTIN

A column about ducks

Meatless Mondays
of indoctrination

told me that to her, “worthwhile” 
means it helps you to better under-
stand the world. Mathematicians 
have numbers, scientists have theo-
ries, and writers have words. What-
ever gets us through the day, it seems, 
is worthwhile. By this I mean that we 
(though there are exceptions) feel 
happier when we think we under-
stand what is going on around us, 

even if this understanding does not 
have a direct transition into any tan-
gible “worth.”

“Worthwhile” is a dark pond we 

feel brave just for dipping our toes 
into. That said, how do we decide 
when we are deep enough into the 
water? We must just go with our gut 
feeling, I suppose.

Through all of the doubts, I have 

concluded only this: If we are doing 
something, somewhere along the 
way we must have already decided 
it to be worthwhile.

We might ask ourselves then: 

What is worthwhile about reading 
a column about ducks?

— Payton Luokkala can be 

reached at payluokk@umich.edu.