Last night I saw that the story about the cooling off mist showers installed at the entrance to the Auschwitz Museum had really picked up steam and had spread wildly. People were expressing surprise, shock, outrage, bewilderment and more, all negative reactions.

I had a thought. Something different, and something different than what I thought when I posted yesterday the initial image that had come out.

Perhaps it is a good thing.

I think the Holocaust education has mostly become a rite of passage for many by now. All the Holocaust Museums, along with the trips to Poland and March of the Living and whatnot. Every year we hear about a group of kids who somehow find the ability to act insensitively at this or that Holocaust memorial site. Many people feel the Holocaust memory has been overused and even abused - even Israeli public officials in recent years have been [a little bit of] talking about the obligatory visit for foreign dignitaries to Yad Vashem being overdone by now and perhaps not giving the right message about the foundation of the State of Israel...

Perhaps these mist showers are a good thing. While the museums and visits make most people reflect for a bit about the Holocaust, these mist showers seem to have really woken people up - shocked them - into thinking about the Holocaust.

Visitors are being quoted in news articles about being shocked, about how it reminded them of gas chambers, how it reminded them of prisoners being showered down and deloused.

While we really heard anything more than some sad sentiments after visits to the Holocaust Museum, maybe these mist showers shocking people is actually a good part of the holocaust education. Maybe it is the surprise and unexpected experience that is out of the ordinary and unexpected that really gets people thinking and understanding of what prisoners went through.