It was quiet, peaceful, even picturesque.
Warm sunlight radiated through blue skies and puffy clouds above me. Green grass stretched across the rolling landscape in all directions. A breeze lightly rustled the branches of nearby trees.
I spent a moment taking it all in. Then I walked over to a small outbuilding.
This structure looked like a modest in-ground shed. One that might be used for curing meats, chiseling tools, or milling flour.
But a large plaque near the entrance explained that it was once used for a far different purpose.
Decades before I’d ambled up to it, this building had been a kiln. Not for pottery. But for people.
The Nazis had used this outbuilding as an extermination chamber during the Holocaust. They’d forced scores of victims inside, barred the door, and turned up the heat to uninhabitable levels. Long after the screaming and banging sounds within the chamber ceased, officers would move the bodies to a mass grave.
Then they’d round up another group and do it all over again.
The plaque explained all this with a horrifying matter-of-factness. And it was far from unique. Plaques outside nearby outbuildings explained how Nazis once poisoned victims with gas or strangled them from coat hooks there.
The splendor of the day vanished. The serenity of my surroundings started to haunt me.
I might have been born generations after the Buchenwald Concentration Camp was liberated. But as I stood within its gates, I felt that I hadn’t. The horrors of this place were tangible to me, in a way no history book could ever emulate.
There was no room for denial. There were no opportunities for delusion.
The reality was stark.
Never forget.
Those two words reverberated through our society in the weeks and months after September 11th, 2001.
Those words served as a poignant reminder, but they hardly seemed necessary.
Who could forget the horrors of what had just happened? Life as we’d known it had changed instantly. And the signs of that shift – from beefed up airport security to the cloud of debris hovering over New York City – were still everywhere.
There was no chance we’d forget. I was sure of it.
Instead, we’d carry that experience forward with us. We’d recall what had been lost on that sunny September morning. We’d remain clear-eyed about what had been gained in the days after, when we rallied as one. And we’d ensure we wouldn’t face the same crucible again in the future.
This viewpoint remained steadfast for years. But it’s not unquestioned anymore.
As I write this, we’re at a point of inflection. Many of the young adults making their mark on society were born after the 9/11 attacks. Others were too young back then to remember anything about that era.
This ascendant generation doesn’t know a world without metal detectors and body scanners. It can’t comprehend a world without the Department of Homeland Security. Heck, it has no idea what a world without the Internet in their pockets looks like.
This would seem to be a blessing. An opportunity to thrive in the post 9/11 world without being marred by its trauma.
But instead, it’s turned into a curse.
Some adults, you see, have refused to take accounts of that fateful day at face value. Instead of seeing the ordeal as a grave tragedy our national defenses failed to thwart, they’ve become apologists for the attackers.
They’ve claimed that our government was to blame – not for failing to prevent the attack, but for failing to hear out the terrorists who planned it. They’ve even claimed that some geopolitical decisions – such as placating the terrorists’ manifesto demands about a Middle East peace plan – would have prevented the attacks entirely.
This narrative has spread like wildfire recently, thanks in great part to the diesel fuel of social media algorithms. It’s spurred discussion and spawned further questions.
But make no mistake. It’s not even remotely true. It’s a delusion.
The ultimate credo of the attackers was not to reshape geopolitics. Their goal was to bring an end to America.
No amount of dialogue would have placated these terrorists. They had declared themselves enemies in a zero-sum game. Nothing would have led them to abandon their perverted mission.
But some in this newer generation didn’t seem to care about the facts on the ground. This delusional notion of a diplomatic offramp seemed tidy enough, and they presented it as reality.
So, decades after I made a pledge to never forget, I’ve now found my own experience – my own existence – gaslit by those immune to the horrors I lived through.
It’s infuriating. It’s frustrating. And it’s leaving me with serious concerns about those set to take my place.
Still, I’m not giving up hope that things will get back on the right track.
When I was growing up, a song called The Sign reached the top of the Billboard charts.
One of the lyrics from that Ace of Base tune is still quoted widely.
Life is demanding without understanding.
I think about that line often when it analyzing my differences with the next generation.
Yes, I consider members of this generation to be delusional at times. But could the real problem be one of demanding without understanding?
Perhaps these young adults mean no malice with their Monday Morning Quarterbacking of a profound national tragedy. Perhaps they’re solely guilty of looking at a long-ago incident from a modern perspective.
And perhaps I should do a better job of understanding what’s behind their perspective. So, let’s take a walk in their shoes.
This is a generation that came of age in the shadow of broken promises. Institutions weren’t living up to their billing, and activists were taking them to task for that failure.
These events led to real changes in power dynamics and spheres of influence. And it led to a belief that aggressive diplomacy could solve all of society’s challenges.
So, yes, it’s only natural that the next generation would view the 9/11 attacks far differently than mine.
And yet, I can’t quite let them off the hook.
You see, peddling in delusion is dangerous. It can cause the lessons of yesterday to go unheeded. And it can tarnish the sanctity of tomorrow.
I might not have been around during the Holocaust. And I might not have known anyone who survived the horrors of that time. But even in my earliest years, I always knew better than to give the Nazis any semblance of legitimacy.
Why? Because I read, I watched, and I internalized.
I read the historical accounts of the Holocaust in my history textbooks. I listened to the stern tones of my teachers and my parents when they discussed those atrocities. And I internalized that what the Nazis did was both inexcusable and wrong.
Visiting the site of Buchenwald only solidified this understanding. It only strengthened my resolve to respect the historical record, ugly as it was. And to avoid leveraging my generational distance to ask What if? For that was a question that led nowhere productive.
In a strange way, this approach has helped protect the legacy of the Holocaust. The most tragic of cautionary tales must remain that way so that its treachery is not repeated. Those furthest removed from the atrocities have the most influence in keeping the mission alive.
When it comes to 9/11, The Great Recession, and other crucibles of my era, the generation after mine has great power. They can accept the reality of what occurred, letting the humility of that knowledge guide them. Or they can fall prey to delusion and false narratives, forgetting the lessons of the past as they rewrite it.
There is still time to choose the right path. I hope they do.