I guess that I am just getting the impression from my mother, who has researched her family's genealogy extensively, and others with whom I have spoken who also are into genealogy, that they are more able to just let it roll off their backs and able to accept that this is just the way things were. People's children died, people were killed through ignorance, it's just how it was. I get the impression that it doesn't both them so much.
This may not be politic to say, but those are not "my" people. That's exactly the problem with "desensitization," and it's not something to strive for, in my opinion. I'm also pretty sure it's a Bad Thing (tm) on a population level to normalize it, no matter how much people complain about violent video games in an attempt to look like they give a flying... umm.... petuti.
History is hard, but it's not the names and dates that make it hard. Names and dates are what you do when you can't handle the stories.
If I were stuck in a conversation about it with a family member I didn't want to say anything difficult to hear to, I'd probably just say something like "well, I guess because X, Y, and Z were fresh in my mind, I just wound up really 'getting it' about how bad that really would be, no matter who you are or when you live. And I guess I'm glad I did, now I've got a real connection with ______ which is pretty awesome, I'd never have expected to have that." If I really wanted to drive it home (which I probably would), I might say "maybe it makes what she went through a little more meaningful to have a witness, to have someone who is still alive who remembers and cares."
That's the impulse behind twinned Bar-mitzvahs, where people honour a relative who died as a child in the Holocaust by studying their story as part of their bar-mitzvah preparation.
... And on that note, I'm off to go do some more work on the Grendle's mommy section... erm... that's a bit ironic, isn't it? Oops. Actually, there's a Beowulf film that purposefully used a supermodel to play Grendle's Mom, in an attempt to humanize her and get the audience to identify with her situation. So, I guess your dilemma (multilemma, I'm oversimplifying) is as old as... Beowulf, anyway. There's a reason everyone gets all hung up on Grendle's mom.
Before I go... Thanks for bringing this up. It's close to my heart and not something one often gets to discuss in thinking company.
-Mich.
