Daily coverage falls short

Special Olympics at Northwestern is a student philanthropy group that strives to provide athletic opportunities to people with intellectual disabilities and promote interaction between these individuals and members of the NU community. We host the largest and oldest student-run Special Olympics games in the United States.

The Special Olympics Illinois Area 5 Spring Games, our largest event of the year, occurred last weekend in Berwyn, Ill. For the 28th consecutive year, NU students planned, financed, and staffed these games.

On May 1, hundreds of NU volunteers took an hour-long bus ride to Morton West High School and generously donated their time by timing track events, measuring softball throws, escorting athletes and running carnival booths.

Without the support of these NU volunteers, the Games would not have been possible. Although the Special Olympics are not held on NU’s Evanston campus, they are very important to both Special Olympics athletes and NU students.

Athletes spend months training for their events, and NU students spend an equal amount of time coaching, fund-raising, and publicizing these games.

The Special Olympics Games have a longstanding tradition at NU. The Daily Northwestern’s exclusion of this event from its campus coverage is disrespectful to the countless NU committee members, coaches, and volunteers, as well as the Special Olympics athletes.

On behalf of the Special Olympics Executive Board, we would like to recognize and thank the hundreds of NU students who contributed to our organization this year. In particular, we would like to thank you for braving the elements to volunteer at the games last Sunday.

We appreciate all of your time and efforts. Your contributions did not go unnoticed by the athletes and their coaches, even if they were largely ignored by The Daily Northwestern.

— Rachel Adamczyk,

Weinberg senior

— Mike Wong,

Weinberg senior

2005 Special Olympics co-chairs

Remember other victims

Laura Olson’s article “Survivors, communities remember Holocaust” and its focus on Jewish remembrance of the Holocaust demonstrates an unfortunate reality: Jews have capitalized on their suffering.

Before lambasting me as a bigot, recognize that a cross or two has burned bright in repugnance of some of my designations. Whenever we hear about the Holocaust or Nazi extermination camps, our thoughts always focus on the 6 million Jews that died.

The other day I was watching a Frontline presentation of an unaired 1945 documentary about the camps and they noted the “11 million” people who died in the genocide. Eleven million?!?

I thought only six million Jews died. And I was right. But I, like most people, had forgotten about the 5 million other gypsies, disabled, communists, Slavs, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and prisoners of war broken by the Nazis. Five million is damn close to 6 million, but since they don’t fit under a single classification — like another one the Nazis felt warranted annihilation — they are overlooked.

Am I saying that Jews are responsible for this? In a sense, yes. Seriously, how many Holocaust memorials are there? There’s even a museum! And why are groups like American Israeli Public Affairs Committee so influential when there are only 6 million Jews in the country?

There never seems to be a dearth of people willing to donate to the Jewish cause. But how many statues were erected for Rwanda? For the Native Americans, Cambodians, Armenians in Turkey?

The list never ends, but you had better believe the History Channel will have specials running on May 5.

We have to look on the Holocaust not as a crime against Jewish people, but as a crime against humanity — our humanity. If we limit grief and suffering by attaching labels or focusing on numbers killed, then we are no better than those who commit these crimes in the first place.

— Steve Crowe,

Weinberg senior