The independent newspaper of Washington University in St. Louis since 1878 VOLUME 144, NO. 8
THURSDAY, OCT 27, 2022
INTO THE WOODS
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OPINION SUBMISSION
Enter into the world of fairy tales with the PAD production. (Scene, pg 4)
MAGGIE BRETT
On the pitfalls of WashU productivity culture. (Forum, pg 5)
University hosts the opening of the Holocaust exhibition Lest We Forget
Returned from 3 ACL tears to be soccer’s leading scorer. (Sports, pg 7)
St. Louis school shooting leaves three dead JAMES ELLINGHAUS JUNIOR NEWS EDITOR
COURTESY OF SCARLETT PATTON
The Lest we Forget exhibit is located in Tisch Park at the East End of campus.
JIMMY HU CONTRIBUTING WRITER The Sam Fox Art School and the Kemper Art Museum jointly hosted the opening of the Holocaust memorial exhibition “Lest We Forget” by Italian-German photographer Luigi Toscano, Oct. 20. Presenting photographic portraits of survivors, the opening featured special remarks from the artist himself, the organizers and sponsors of the event, and one of the survivors portrayed in the collection. Many who attended the event were Holocaust survivors, a number of whom appear in Toscano’s works. Participants dressed solemnly to pay tribute to those whose lives were taken away. Classical music accompanied the entering of the audience as they extended embraces and handshakes amongst themselves. Erin McGlothlin, professor of German and Jewish studies, began the opening of the exhibit by discussing the numerous faculty members and students who are refugees and survivors of the Holocaust, as well as the University’s extensive research and representation of Holocaust history in academia. “[The University] has a long and distinguished history of serving as an intellectual haven for refugees from Nazi Germany and for survivors of the Holocaust,” she said.
McGlothlin recognized the permanent trauma that Nazi Germany inf licted on the Jewish population and civilization. “They are the millions of unseen or no longer existent photographs of parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, indeed, entire families, all of whom perished in the Holocaust,” she said. “These multitudinous virtual images f loat invisibly in the air around the concrete photographs of the survivors as ambient reminders of the cataclysmic destruction of an entire culture and the great loss of millions of individual human lives,” McGlothlin said. Luigi Toscano incorporates new photographs of survivors living in different cities into this Lest We Forget collection as he travels. 12 new photographs of survivors living in the Saint Louis metropolitan area joined the collection, which has been displayed in headquarters of the United Nations in New York and Genève, as well as many other cities across Europe and the United States. The key organizer and sponsor of the event, Dee Dee Simon, co-founder of local nonprofit organization Conversation Builds Character that focuses on understanding history and human dynamics for a better future, mentioned her own experience of how this exhibition
spoke to her. In addition to extending gratitude to the survivors for being here, as they are “the unspoken words that speak the loudest,” she also applauded the legislative efforts that mandate the education of Holocaust history to high school students in the state of Missouri, starting from the 2026–2027 school year. Simon introduced Toscano as a “self-taught photographer and filmmaker,” whose passion for photography “was born out of the necessity to record and share his ideas.” Toscano’s portraits are often presented in public spaces accessible to everyone, so that “the portraits gain an uninhibited entry point into the everyday lives and consciousness of people passing by, independent of origin, age or education.” Luigi Toscano was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the highest tribute that can be paid to individuals for services to their nation. In response to those who question the purpose of his project, Toscano said, “My answer is that I would like to stand up against antisemitism, racism, and any kind of hate crime, and when I met the first survivor, he said to me, ‘Luigi, if we forget the past, we are doomed to repeat it.’” One of the survivors at the venue, Rachel Miller, gave an
account of her own story of persecution, loss, emigration, and hope. “It is not easy to speak about your entire family being murdered, and it still hurts and frightens me and makes me very emotional at times,” she said. Miller endured separation from her entire family, who were mercilessly murdered by the regime, from her motherland, as an immigrant to the United States, and from her Jewish identity, as she had no choice but to rename herself “Christine” to avoid systemic persecution. “It is never easy. I never want anyone to feel sorry for me. I want them to listen and learn from my testimony. I never forget and I keep speaking,” she said. “It is my hope that we will continue to tell the stories, and I will continue to speak as long as I knew.” Chancellor Andrew Martin spoke of the “alarming rise of hate in our society today,” manifested by forums and political movements worldwide that still espouse the “dangerous stereotypes and falsehoods” with regards to the Jewish population. “Hatred and bigotry can only thrive in the vacuum of ignorance,” he said. “And ignorance can only be countered by confronting, reckoning, and learning from the past.”
Two people were killed in a shooting at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School (CVPA) in south St. Louis on Monday. The victims are 61-yearold health teacher Jean Kuczka and 15-year-old student Alexandria Bell. The gunman, 19-year-old Orlando Harris, was shot by St. Louis police and later died at a local hospital. Seven other individuals at CVPA were harmed but survived. Chancellor Andrew Martin conveyed the news to the Washington University community in an email, offering his condolences and support to all those affected by the shooting. “We know there are members of the university community with direct ties to the school who are impacted by this horrible event, and we stand at the ready to offer our full support to anyone who is personally affected,” Martin said. “There is no place for gun violence in our schools. My heart is with everyone who is suffering today.” Martin’s email also contained links to the University’s mental health and trauma resources for all students and staff members to use. According to NBC affiliate KSDK’s sources, Harris graduated from CVPA in 2021 and had no prior criminal history. Before entering the school, the gunman left a note with a “list of school shootings across the country, the names of the shooters and death tolls from each of the incidents” in his car; the note also stated that Harris “wanted to be the next national school shooter.” The sources also said that Harris used an AR-15 weapon, pre-planned his movements using a map of the school, and wore black attire and earplugs during the attack. Law enforcement received notice of an active shooter at 9:11 a.m. CST and arrived at the scene four minutes later, said Metropolitan Police Department Commissioner Mike Sack to USA Today. According to Sack, the police entered the building immediately, located the gunman, and shot him in less than 15 minutes after receiving the initial alert. Those who experienced the attack expressed their fear and anger to reporters. Speaking to USA Today, CVPA junior Dylan Fritz recounted his experience and condemned gun violence in schools. “I wanted to go to school today and learn. I was there to learn. I was not there to hide in a corner. Guns do not belong in schools,” Fritz said.
SEE SHOOTING, PAGE 2
Guest speakers discuss the need to have truthful political discussions AVI HOLZMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER Three Conservative public thinkers spoke about the “Assault on Truth” in American politics and how to address it, Oct. 19. The John C. Danforth Center for Religion and Politics brought in Brookings Institution Senior Fellow, Jonathan Rauch; President of the Trinity Forum, Cherie Harder; and
Senior Fellow at the Trinity Forum, Peter Wehner to speak during an informal lunch and a more formal evening conversation about the current state of political discourse. The trio began their conversation in the evening by outlining the stakes of political attacks on the truth before discussing how Americans can prevent this assault and begin to build connections between those with differing political ideologies.
THE ASSAULT When asked what element of truth will be the most critical in the impending elections, Rauch responded “stop the steal.” “A lot of this election is being waged by Republican candidates who are making a central issue of the lie that the election was stolen,” he said. “So that puts truth front and center.” Wehner and Harder agreed with Rauch’s claim. “There are a lot of
Republicans who know better and know that Stop The Steal is dishonest,” Wehner said. He continued on to describe what he believes to be the toxic nature of the current Republican party. “If you speak against the assault [on truth directly], you end up like Liz Cheney. If you go along with it, you end up like Ron DeSantis or Marjorie Taylor Greene,” Wehner said. Harder said that truth is no longer universally recognized.
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“We’re at a point where we don’t all agree on what’s true or false or even real or unreal, and that is kind of new territory,” she said. The ramifications of this reality are immense, especially in a political environment, Rauch said. “Mass disinformation, once unleashed…is hard to contain.” According to Rauch, disinformation seems even more
SEE TRUTH, PAGE 2