{"id":1043,"date":"2017-03-25T14:26:44","date_gmt":"2017-03-25T14:26:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/?p=1043"},"modified":"2017-03-25T14:26:44","modified_gmt":"2017-03-25T14:26:44","slug":"respecting-the-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/2017\/03\/25\/respecting-the-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"Respecting the Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

The name Emma Johnson doesn’t show it, but I have a Polish background. My grandfather on my mother’s side was Polish, a Polish Jew. Rudy Horenstein was born in a small town in Poland in 1923 and was just a teenager when the war started. Threatened with the invasion of Germany, my grandfather fled to Russia under a false identity, was imprisoned, forced into a labor camp, and was almost marched to his death in a bitter winter until he was liberated by U.S. forces.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, then, the Yolocaust\u00a0project strikes an emotional cord in me. I’ve visited the Holocaust memorial in Berlin, and I’ve seen many of the same selfies and silly photos being taken there as the ones Shahak Shapira used on his website. The apparent thoughtlessness and insensitivity of these photos surprises me, as the gray blocks inspired in me a sense of dread and confusion instead of a background for artistic or fun photos.<\/p>\n

\"\"
An example of the photoshopping used in the Yolocaust\u00a0project, reframing the selfies and funny shots at the Holocaust memorial around footage from concentration camps. Photo courtesy of EuroNews<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u00a0think this speaks to the role of technology in shaping how we interact with a place. Are we less respectful of places now because of smartphones? Are we more concerned with how we can get more “likes” rather than the substance of the thing we are photographing? Without smartphones, would people not have done yoga on the blocks, or posed on them, or climbed on them? People might have continued those activities, but maybe that action would have been seen by only five other people rather than thousands of strangers on the internet.<\/p>\n

I am biased in many ways concerning this story. I also don’t have a smartphone, and I’m a believer that smartphones prevent you from fully experiencing a place in the way that it was designed to be experienced. How can you recognize the uncertainty of walking over the\u00a0uneven path, or fear the darkness from the towering stones above you when you are glued to your screen and its light is shining your way?<\/p>\n

Of course, not everyone agrees with me. The anti-Semitic ones lashed back at Shapira with comments about being a “dumb Jew” and wishing he would die in a concentration camp. Others thought the original photos were just a funny joke. Regardless, it is unclear if technology simply the vehicle for sharing our actions with the wide world of the internet or if technology is truly changing the way we interact with the sacred and somber places in the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The name Emma Johnson doesn’t show it, but I have a Polish background. My grandfather on my mother’s side was Polish, a Polish Jew. Rudy Horenstein was born in a small town in Poland in 1923 and was just a teenager when the war started. Threatened with the invasion of Germany, my grandfather fled to … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Respecting the Dead”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-group-c"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1043"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1048,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1043\/revisions\/1048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}