OK., so Niko is still chuckling. We need to be at the Norse Federation at 10am tomorrow morning to be escorted by Tynlee to the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights. I just woke up and looked at the clock. It said it was 10:58. I totally freaked out thinking that we were very late for our appointment. It took Niko a few minutes but he finally looked at me confused and said, “It’s 10:58pm We have 12 hours to get there.” That darn jet Lag!

Now that I am awake, questions swirl around in my head from today’s experience at the Holocaust Museum. How did I get to be 50 years old, have visited Dachau in my 20’s, have a grandfather who was 100% Slavic and have no idea, until today, that the Slavic people were a targeted group by the Nazi’s? I had no idea that they were sent to the camps.

We had an incredible tour of the museum and lunch with the Georg Brocht, the director of the Holocaust Museum. As we lingered over lunch, Sam exclaimed, “Mom, I know you don’t like me to use this word, but Hitler was evil.” Where does a mother who believes in the sanctity of life, who believes that no person is purely good or purely bad go with that statement? Don’t get me wrong, I believe that Hitler’s actions were heinous. But doesn’t saying he was evil just perpetuate an “us and them” mentality that he promoted? How do we stand against the works of another and not perpetuate an attitude of superiority of person hood. How do I explain any of that without sounding like a pollyanna? What is most important to me is not whether he was purely evil, but where in me does such evil lie? What part of me feels superior or seeks power over, or separates myself as other than… It is in these actions and attitudes that such evil can take root. I do not believe that Hitler came into the world evil. I DO believe that it grew in him as he gained power and that eventually the darkness was all he could see, and it became a driving force. AND I believe that within him, as I believe there is within every human being, a spark of the divine. “The Light still shines in the darkness and the darkness has never put it out.” Somewhere within Hitler and within all those who do heinous acts is the light of the divine waiting. Somewhere within all of us who choose to walk in the light there are pockets of darkness. Within all of us, the light still shines.