Resilience Cafe

Artist statement:
Stop Genocide!

My art represents past genocide and present genocide. On the top half, there are pictures of the genocide in Sudan. There are abandoned children, hungry, and dead people. On the bottom half there are pictures of the Holocaust. It shows pictures of the concentration camps and what people went through. They connect to each other because the same thing is happening in Sudan as what happened during the Holocaust. People are killing other people for no reason and discriminating against them.


Essay:

What instigates one group of people to hate or attack with violence another group of people? Do they really hate them, or are they not at peace with themselves? When they use violence against others, are they trying to destroy something inside themselves they dislike? Was Benjamin Ajak correct when he said, “The one that is killed gets to be free, but the one that kills has to face God in heaven and can never be free?”

Agathe Ehrenfried is a resilient person because she survived the death of her entire family in the Holocaust led by Adolph Hitler during World War II. This was the genocide of the Jews, or what the Nazis called the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question”. Agi’s family died along with nine to eleven million other victims. Agi is a Hungarian Jew born in Budapest in 1927. Agi’s story began in 1938 when the Third Reich conquered territory in Eastern Europe and murdered Jews in mass shootings. Along with other Jews, Agi and her family were pulled out of their homes and crammed into ghettos before being thrown onto freight trains. These trains traveled hundreds of miles to concentration and extermination camps. Agi was taken to Auschwitz, a concentration camp, where inmates were used as slave labor until they died of exhaustion or disease. Agi’s entire family, her sister and parents, died. She does not know how they died. They may have died in a concentration camp or sent to the extermination camps where people were killed in gas chambers. The Jews were asked to line up before boarding the train. If you were sent to the right it meant slave labor, and if you were sent to the left it meant the gas chambers. Agi was in the concentration camp for so long that she felt like giving up. It was her faith that kept her strong. Her strength and resilience is reflected in her talks and warnings to younger generations to be aware of any injustice they see around them. She tells them to speak out against any wrongdoing they witness. Agi is a hero because she is here to remind us to not back down from violence or obvious injustice. Agathe Ehrenfried and Benjamin Ajak are similar because they both were victims of violence, and are determined to teach others now to stand up against it.

Benjamin Ajak is one of the child refugees that became known as the Lost Boys. His journey took him more than one thousand miles across a country where he was surrounded by war, land mines, crocodile-infested waters, and extreme hunger, thirst, and disease. Benjamin Ajak was raised among the Dinka tribe of Sudan. He lived in a small community with grass-roofed cottages, cattle herders, and tribal councils. Then one night, the government-armed Murahiliin began attacking his villages. This was the night that Benjamin fled from there. After this, Benjamin lived in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya. On the way to Ethiopia, Benjamin and the other boys were most afraid of the desert of Ajakageer. This was going to be the most dangerous part of his journey. Benjamin said, “I sweated, my eyes burned, and my skin was slippery and irritated.” “I was too thirsty to cry. I had no saliva in my mouth or tears in my eyes.” The boys faced



more brutality again when they finally arrived at the refugee camps. He was finally accepted as a refugee by the United States. However, his plane was suppose to fly into
John F. Kennedy International airport on September 11, 2001 when the World Trade Center buildings went down. He saw the buildings in flames from his airplane window. Therefore, he was sent to Canada for two weeks. He arrived into the United States by bus. Benjamin, just like Agi, almost lost all hope of surviving. He saw how violence ruins lives and how important it is to not accept any kind of violence. Today, Benjamin Ajak is one of the authors of the Lost Boys of Sudan Memoir, They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky. He travels to schools to speak out against violence and the importance of education. Benjamin said, “The one that is killed gets to be free, but the one that kills has to face God in heaven and can never be free.”

I relate to Agi because I am also Jewish. As a Jew I am discriminated against by people because of my religion. Although I have never gone through anything as severe as the Holocaust, I know what it feels like not to be liked because of religious differences. I have never gone through Benjamin Ajak experienced. However, Agi did. I especially feel a certain connection to Agi because of our shared faith. I have been made fun of before, and people have not wanted to be my friend because of the fact that I am Jewish. More specifically, I have encountered discrimination sometimes because I participate in activities that my friends have never done, or don’t understand. These are not always religious activities. They are just different from the things they know or do themselves. Although I experience discrimination in different forms, and luckily, I have thus far not been a victim of violence, I feel I need to be strong in order to not let their comments affect me.

I can relate to both Agi and Benjamin. They understand right and wrong. It is never right to make someone else feel like they are not as good and be picked on for it, or even hurt. Both Agi and Benjamin are very brave and continue to teach others to be aware of injustice and violence. They leave the message behind that the only thing wrong is to stand idly by. What Agi has gone through has inspired me to remember to never give up and always believe that I can get through things no matter how tough they are. I want to continue their legacy by always trying to do the right thing for myself, and to be a voice for others in the face of injustice.