The Everyday Remember; Holocaust Legacy
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(Pics and Excerpts Below)
Excerpt #1:
Jack and Genia survived years of torture and cruelty. When liberated, they still had to fear for their lives as Displaced Persons with no homeland to return to. They had nothing, not a single possession except the clothes they were wearing. As Jack and Genia tried to move on they were getting final confirmation of the deaths of their parents, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles and friends. They moved forward with nothing except the skills they had from the old country, profound sadness and a fighting spirit to not just survive, but to thrive. There were physical and psychological hardships that would follow them but there was also an elegant charm that they would carry through life and pass along to family, friends and everyone else that they would encounter.
I am the grand child of four Holocaust Survivors. The odds that any of my four grandparents would survive was near zero. For all of them to survive is statistically just about impossible. There is no silver lining to the Holocaust. The best we can do as individuals and the best society can do as a whole is to Honor the Legacy and engage in “The Everyday Remember”.
Excerpt #2:
"Once a Day"
I was about seven years old and my sister and I stayed in Elkhart Lake for the night with my grandparents. The Schwartz Resort was a famous destination for the Survivor Community as well as other Jewish people in their 50’s and 60’s. Elkhart Lake is also home to Road America, an internationally renowned race track and is about an hour and fifteen minutes north of Milwaukee.
Grandma was walking with me to Gessert’s, an ice cream shop just a couple blocks from Schwartz’s. She said hi to a lady who owned a house and stopped and talked to her. The resort and the community were very different. Elkhart Lake was small town USA and the resort was filled with big city immigrants for the most part. This lady and grandma talked about what they were doing that day and about the gardening she was doing at the time. Before we left, the lady said to me “Talking to your grandma is the one nice conversation I have all day”. Kind of the way people felt when they came into the store. I bet she wasn’t the only person who enjoyed and even relied on those conversations with grandma. When she was happy, Grandma had a friendliness and charisma that brightened up anyone’s day. And to think of all she had been through, it’s really amazing. She probably had nothing genuinely in common with this lady, but even when there’s nothing in common, you can find something.
Jack and Genia survived years of torture and cruelty. When liberated, they still had to fear for their lives as Displaced Persons with no homeland to return to. They had nothing, not a single possession except the clothes they were wearing. As Jack and Genia tried to move on they were getting final confirmation of the deaths of their parents, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles and friends. They moved forward with nothing except the skills they had from the old country, profound sadness and a fighting spirit to not just survive, but to thrive. There were physical and psychological hardships that would follow them but there was also an elegant charm that they would carry through life and pass along to family, friends and everyone else that they would encounter.
I am the grand child of four Holocaust Survivors. The odds that any of my four grandparents would survive was near zero. For all of them to survive is statistically just about impossible. There is no silver lining to the Holocaust. The best we can do as individuals and the best society can do as a whole is to Honor the Legacy and engage in “The Everyday Remember”.
Excerpt #2:
"Once a Day"
I was about seven years old and my sister and I stayed in Elkhart Lake for the night with my grandparents. The Schwartz Resort was a famous destination for the Survivor Community as well as other Jewish people in their 50’s and 60’s. Elkhart Lake is also home to Road America, an internationally renowned race track and is about an hour and fifteen minutes north of Milwaukee.
Grandma was walking with me to Gessert’s, an ice cream shop just a couple blocks from Schwartz’s. She said hi to a lady who owned a house and stopped and talked to her. The resort and the community were very different. Elkhart Lake was small town USA and the resort was filled with big city immigrants for the most part. This lady and grandma talked about what they were doing that day and about the gardening she was doing at the time. Before we left, the lady said to me “Talking to your grandma is the one nice conversation I have all day”. Kind of the way people felt when they came into the store. I bet she wasn’t the only person who enjoyed and even relied on those conversations with grandma. When she was happy, Grandma had a friendliness and charisma that brightened up anyone’s day. And to think of all she had been through, it’s really amazing. She probably had nothing genuinely in common with this lady, but even when there’s nothing in common, you can find something.
