Requiem Response

I thought the Oklahoma City memorial was a very good way to remember the people who were killed.  It was interesting to see how much thought went into planning a memorial. Every time I have been to a memorial I never thought about the planning that went into designing and implementing a memorial.  The chairs are effective in making me think about all the lives lost.  I think about each empty chair as a person who could be sitting there.  It is a well-designed piece of art that really makes the viewer think.  I think the museum room where viewers enter and hear the recording of a meeting right before the bombing is very chilling.  It forces people to think about each chair outside and how their death affected others. I actually remember listening to the radio before Timothy McVeigh’s execution and wondering what kind of man could do that.

This article reminded me of the Cambodian Genocide.  When I went to Cambodia I had the chance to visit a memorial for the lives lost in the genocide.  This was a very different memorial because they placed the actual bones for viewers to see inside a tower.  The picture I chose is one that I took of the whole memorial building.  I also got a chance to go inside the museum and see the faces of the people who caused the genocide and learn more about it.  This was a very different genocide because Cambodians killed their own kind.  Memorials can be very scary reminds of history.