a big long op-ed about auschwitz, java island, memorial day & empathy

normally i wouldn't really go out of my way to do anything different on memorial day. (my family actually had a discussion yesterday about whether we were supposed to be remembering vets -- or if that was just veterans day & today was for remembering anyone who died? clearly we haven't spent alot of time thinking about this particular holiday.)
but as it happens the thought of disasters has been on my mind a bit lately. on wednesday night i watched oprah & elie wiesel (author of the book night), visit the nazi death camp, auschwitz & talk about what life was like during that war. i've been to auschwitz. but something about it just sunk in, watching & listening wednesday night, in a different way than it had before.
world war 2 isn't exactly a shock to us. it's history. i grew up knowing that a guy named hitler had set out to destroy the jewish race, i grew up knowing that the world had tried to ignore him for awhile. i knew millions had died, i knew about occupation, & death camps & war. it just doesn't really have the element of surprise anymore. which is weird -- because i still get shocked by my own suffering. as if i expected suffering to be only something that happened back in the 50's or something.
my life over the last year has been pretty crappy. i've had to face up to alot of loss & death & alot of aloneness. i think at the moment the result of all that stuff in my life is that i'm pretty narcisistic. let's hope it's just a stage, but i'm so used to being overwhelmed with my own crap that i don't feel like i have the energy to take on the suffering in the world. but this week, maybe because the stress in my life has lessened or maybe becuase of oprah or maybe because of the earthquake in indonesia on saturday or maybe because of memorial day, i've been trying to notice.
people say we need to remember, so that we can prevent it from happening again. that never really meant much to me. but i was thinking this week about africa, about that scene in the movie hotel rwanda where the journalist says that people will look up from their dinner, see horrific images on their tv screens, say 'oh, how awful' & then go back to their dinners & do nothing about it. i was thinking about darfur & the congo, about september 11, about the tsunami, hurricane katrina. and then on saturday that earthquake hit the island of java, indonesia. as of this morning on google news, estimates are at roughly 5,000 dead.
but i'm wondering if "awareness" is enough? i suppose awareness is better than nothing. but it can feel so helpless, because what can we actually do? it's good that i know that there are kids starving to death, but me knowing it doesn't actually seem to get food to their mouths. i signed the one petition & i pay attention to the news (sometimes) & once in a while i send 20 dollars off to some aid orginazation or other. it just doesn't seem like much.
maybe when people say "we must remember" they don't just mean we should stick a flag on our mailboxes & act solemn for a day. they mean we must feel. we must develop some sort of empathy that gets us to transcend our lives & actually see into the lives of other people. maybe it's okay to be overwhelmed by the suffering in the world because it means we are paying attention. maybe trying to come up with a way to live where our own problems stop being this consuming thing in front of our faces taking all our energy & distancing us from everyone else, & instead our suffering becomes what connects us, maybe that will help. maybe.
i'm being way dramatic here. it's just that this whole thing frustrates me. i hate it; i hate this 'death toll' number becoming something we're so used to. i find it really hard to open myself up to what is going on around the world without feeling like i'll drown in all the hopelessness. i want to help. i have no answers. i'm just wondering. okay. rant over.