Photo: Smadar Halperin-Ephstein
What lesson does history tell
Of shattered bits,
And scratched on bells?
Can peals of old
Be heard
Be said
So we not ruin
What’s ahead?
For the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: History
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History of the Bloomingdale area on Manhattan's Upper West Side
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Na'ama Yehuda 
This reminds me of a country town I visited in Australia. It was the site where Japanese men were interned during WW2 (a strange practice that hopefully never happens again) They staged a breakout but it was not successful. After the war the people of the town expressed great remorse and declared the town to be a place of peace. The Japanese presented the town with a huge bell that is called The Peace Bell.
https://visitcowra.com.au/australias-world-peace-bell
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That is certainly a better ‘later’ story than the white washing of the Japanese internment camps in the US … which so many still refuse to give due attention to.
People do awful thing in war. I never really could stand war or the pseudo-justification for cruelties it enables.
I’m glad that Australia worked to find some measure of healing through the Peace Bell. I think many more places can use more compassion and more tolerance and less xenophobia and a whole lot less of brokenness … May children show us the way.
Thanks for this link and comment!
Na’ama
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Thanks Na’ama. You are very right. The Cowra Peace Bell deserves to be better known. I don’t have any photos of it though so can’t really write about it for this challenge. It’s a strange story but at least the outcome bought some resolution.
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Yes, I wish more people knew of it, but now I know — and I hadn’t before — and so I’m grateful that you’d shared it with me here, and hopefully with others who’d read the comments and follow the link.
Thank you!
Na’ama
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I can’t get it out of my mind now. I think I’ll write it up and post with photos found online.
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Yes! That would be excellent! 🙂
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I can’t find a prompt to link to but will write it anyway – it could take a couple of days as there is quite a bit to research.
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The prompts are often at the bottom of my posts. Here’s the one to go with the excellent post you’d posted:
Na’ama
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Thanks for sending me the link. Unfortunately I didn’t feel I could link because I didn’t have any of my own photos about the place.
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Ah, I see!
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I share your hope that we learn the lessons from history.
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Amen to that!
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Learn the lessons from history seems impossible – but there is still hope that maybe someday we will.
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It is possible, though there certainly seems to be resistance to learning history’s lessons (and in some case, to even allow people to learn them — when chapters of history are removed or pushed under the rug or outright hidden or denied), mostly by those who stand to gain from history’s lessons NOT being learned …
That said, we can each do our part, I believe, to help history be known, to let history have a voice, and to do better about not repeating it. It’s a process, more than an event, IMO.
I’m an incurable optimist … I think Humanity can do a lot better than it does, and that, already, is an encouraging thought.
🙂
Na’ama
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Stay optimistic!
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😀 no worries. I think my optimistic-to-pessimistic dial is permanently stuck on “Optimistic” 😉
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😊
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It was a horrible episode in history and one the US isn’t very open about. At least Australia steps up to the responsibility. Our poor world has much to learn from the past. Wonderful choice Na’ama
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Yes, the world has a lot to learn from History yet, and from its better nature. We’d had more than enough of the least-best nature by now.
And … healing and reparation and empathy and friendship and real peace are all possible, though they do begin with taking responsibility, accepting the pain caused, and working to repair what can be repaired, physically and otherwise.
We can do it. If we choose do.
May more choose care over cruelty.
Na’ama
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