![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Apr. 16th, 2015 10:10 amAfter all those years, several wars and countless ceremonies, the sound of the Holocaust Day siren (Or next week Memorial day is still like a knife on my heart. Even after it's over, I can feel the ache.
(no subject)
Apr. 14th, 2015 09:33 pmTomorrow is Holocaust Day Eve.
Of all Memorial days, it is the most painful for me, because the Holocaust is very much part of our life, even today.
I would have had a big family, if not for the Holocaust. My mom had six siblings. All were murdered. The youngest was two years old, and he looked like me - curls and big dark blue eyes.
He was snatched from my grandmothers arms and killed before her eyes, and he was the child she mourned the most.
My mother was born in Israel,and she has one more sister. But, my grandmother was broken, and she had never recovered. She died very young, and every night without fail, she would wake up screaming from nightmares about her dead children.
Every year my mother would tell and retell us how horrible it was to grow up and live under the shadow of the Holocaust. I believe her, this once. That shadow had distorted her life and personalty and left her quite severely mentally ill.
We talked about it at work today,sharing some stories.
Than one of the boys said: “tomorrow at the Eve we are going to my grandfather’s home. To celebrate”.
I opened big eyes at the word “celebrate”. But he explained:
“every year we go and sit with him for hours, singing and talking and keeping him company. He said this is a day of celebration for him, because he had survived, and the Nazis didn't manage to finish of his family. He had survived, and married, and he has children and great great children now.
And also, this way we keep him from watching TV and listening to all the stories. “
I was very much touched by this story. What a man, to laugh so at the face of disaster, to look at the bright side, to rise this way from the ashes. I salute him.
And I salute my grandmother, who had survived and remarried. And I salute my grandfather, who had lost also six children before meeting my grandmother, but he had also rebuild himself and his life.
And I salute all those people, all that lost and heroic and tragic generation,who had build our state with both hands, so that “Never Again”.
And I salute our parents, as broken as they are, that Second Generation, who had lived and grew under the heavy burden.
And, finally, I salute us.
We survived.
Of all Memorial days, it is the most painful for me, because the Holocaust is very much part of our life, even today.
I would have had a big family, if not for the Holocaust. My mom had six siblings. All were murdered. The youngest was two years old, and he looked like me - curls and big dark blue eyes.
He was snatched from my grandmothers arms and killed before her eyes, and he was the child she mourned the most.
My mother was born in Israel,and she has one more sister. But, my grandmother was broken, and she had never recovered. She died very young, and every night without fail, she would wake up screaming from nightmares about her dead children.
Every year my mother would tell and retell us how horrible it was to grow up and live under the shadow of the Holocaust. I believe her, this once. That shadow had distorted her life and personalty and left her quite severely mentally ill.
We talked about it at work today,sharing some stories.
Than one of the boys said: “tomorrow at the Eve we are going to my grandfather’s home. To celebrate”.
I opened big eyes at the word “celebrate”. But he explained:
“every year we go and sit with him for hours, singing and talking and keeping him company. He said this is a day of celebration for him, because he had survived, and the Nazis didn't manage to finish of his family. He had survived, and married, and he has children and great great children now.
And also, this way we keep him from watching TV and listening to all the stories. “
I was very much touched by this story. What a man, to laugh so at the face of disaster, to look at the bright side, to rise this way from the ashes. I salute him.
And I salute my grandmother, who had survived and remarried. And I salute my grandfather, who had lost also six children before meeting my grandmother, but he had also rebuild himself and his life.
And I salute all those people, all that lost and heroic and tragic generation,who had build our state with both hands, so that “Never Again”.
And I salute our parents, as broken as they are, that Second Generation, who had lived and grew under the heavy burden.
And, finally, I salute us.
We survived.
