Where'd She Go?

On a really hot July afternoon, I invited my soon-to-be roommate and landlord over to my city center apartment in Philadelphia. I was anxious to sign a new lease and end the unstable cycle of moving as a sublessee. Our landlord ran a credit check for both of us and was prepared for us to sign.

As he sat down in my living room with a stack of paper (seriously, it was an 1inch thick), he inhaled and exhaled deeply. He told us, specifically me, that he had some concerns. In my credit check, it rang up that I owed the city's public library 80 dollars for a book. I assured him that I had paid them back just the week prior and had been in a different city when the book was due. I even presented a receipt. He said that his concern was not the payment but rather the book itself. He wanted to know what it was that cost me eighty dollars.

I, an African American woman, was sitting across from my potential landlord who was Jewish, and beside my new roommate who was also Jewish. I, too, inhaled and exhaled deeply as I said, "The book was a newly translated edition of... Mein Kampf." I waited for a visible sign of some, any emotion that she or he was willing to give me. He tilted his head and asked why I needed the book.

How does one explore 'evil'? How does one investigate the things we all wish we could simply leave in the past in a manner that ensures a successfully diverse future?

I told him that it was research. Despite a few more moves and a recent relocation to Chicago for grad school, I still have that book. When I think about it, the $80 charge is meager when I compare it to the lives that were lost in the holocaust and subsequent genocides. I still have so much to learn, not just about the historical context, but also the contemporary cultures in these areas today.