"What are you looking for?"
“What are you looking for? Why do you keep going?”I suppose these questions could be asked of any researcher. But this time, hearing them at a party, I have to admit that between the lines, I felt a judgment. As in: Why don’t you leave that subject alone now? Stop. It makes me uncomfortable. It makes the world uncomfortable. Why don’t you focus on other things? No one can tell by looking at you that you are just one generation removed! Be normal. Be detached. In any case, don’t tell me any more about what you find.
The topic is the Holocaust. The subject, more specifically, is when and why did some of my loved ones die? What were others doing, and where, during the years that they were alive? What odds were defied so that the family could continue? And, of the several family members whose death records can’t be found—is there any chance that they survived?
If I were a more combative person, I suppose I could respond: “Why do you feel the topic is irrelevant?”
But I’m polite.
And I typically don’t inflict much on friends; let them be.
I knew one friend for eleven years before I told her that my father was a Holocaust survivor. And it was only because that morning she was so insistent that I go see Schindlers List because it could teach me about the Holocaust.
I will try not to equate the questions that began this entry with the world’s massive indifference and ignorance at the time.
Seeing pictures of and getting general statements about any massive atrocity is just the surface. It’s one level of knowledge. Often it’s all we can take.
I’ve lived for decades with partial knowing--my own vast unknowing.
This is among the most difficult topics I’ve ever researched—because of the interwinings of the world’s history and family history.
There is nothing I can tell this friend to help that person see the relevance—to my life now, to the precarious situation around the world, to the unhealed wounds of history, to hate being alive and well and thriving, to racism still posing a threat in many places.
Perhaps I should just answer: Because.
The topic is the Holocaust. The subject, more specifically, is when and why did some of my loved ones die? What were others doing, and where, during the years that they were alive? What odds were defied so that the family could continue? And, of the several family members whose death records can’t be found—is there any chance that they survived?
If I were a more combative person, I suppose I could respond: “Why do you feel the topic is irrelevant?”
But I’m polite.
And I typically don’t inflict much on friends; let them be.
I knew one friend for eleven years before I told her that my father was a Holocaust survivor. And it was only because that morning she was so insistent that I go see Schindlers List because it could teach me about the Holocaust.
I will try not to equate the questions that began this entry with the world’s massive indifference and ignorance at the time.
Seeing pictures of and getting general statements about any massive atrocity is just the surface. It’s one level of knowledge. Often it’s all we can take.
I’ve lived for decades with partial knowing--my own vast unknowing.
This is among the most difficult topics I’ve ever researched—because of the interwinings of the world’s history and family history.
There is nothing I can tell this friend to help that person see the relevance—to my life now, to the precarious situation around the world, to the unhealed wounds of history, to hate being alive and well and thriving, to racism still posing a threat in many places.
Perhaps I should just answer: Because.
posted by Wordsanctuary | 9:49 AM
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