Don't Be Indifferent

In his recent speech at The Museum at Auschwitz-Birkenau Marian Turski, Auschwitz survivor and moral compass in Poland encouraged his listeners not to be indifferent to intolerance.

I thought of that today after speaking with two African friends in Poland who discussed with me their academic experiences here in Poland. I will leave out their genders, fields of study and place where they live to give them privacy. They both said that only two people in their classes speak to them beyond a cursory greeting, and only those two people share notes with them. They said that people always leave two seats between them so that they end up sitting with two seats on either side of them in a kind of island within the classroom.

One of them said they often break up into pairs to do projects but since there is an uneven number of people in the class this person ends up alone. Even when the project involved going out into the community and talking in Polish (something that was clearly harder for this person than their Polish peers) this person had no partner.

Poland, you can do better! If there’s someone different in your class, speak to them, get to know them, include them. Do you think they don’t notice? Do you think they don’t feel pain?