Walking through the museum of memory and Human Rights was a very heavy experience. First of all the museum itself is visually very beautiful. The building was unlike the surrounding buildings,making its clear that the content inside was important. When you first walk in the building, the photos that pictorially create the landmass of the world set up the narrative the museum wants to tell. Human rights is a global issue, and the atrocities that were committed in Chile are in many ways similar to other happenings around the globe. It’s a terrifying thought that a single person could suggest the killing of thousands of people, and have a large portion of that country’s society get on board with that idea. It goes to show how fear and hatred can be the fuel for horrific acts, and how we need to learn from those acts for a better future for all human beings. It made the problems in our country seem very scary, and I just hope the American people do not let the fear and hatred many are feeling towards certain groups fuel those kinds of acts.
The Museum of Memory was the single most important space within my travel to Santiago for understanding the geo-political behemoth that is Chile’s capital. Prior to my experiences there walking through the exhibits, slowly understanding the weight which Chile carries, I had little to no knowledge of the sheer malice the Pinochet regime inflicted on its people just a few decades ago. Like you said, I too felt the weight, the heaviness of the space the moment I walked down the ramp past the set of human rights and into the shade that the building cast below. As a product of the events of 1940s Poland, I knew it was to be a personally dark experience in the museum. Not until I saw the images of the coup, videos of the oppressed and those who chose to fight back, did I truly realize how purely fascist Pinochet was, not unlike his European counterpart Hitler. Images of global assassinations under Operation Condor, thousands of protesters clashing to the sound of Pope John Paul II’s words, and a bloodied limp man under the trees at the Plaza de Armas still burn in my brain. This museum, while a harsh pill the swallow, a required one it was none the less for me to more fully understand the country that is Chile today.