"How was your trip?" The most dreaded question I
faced upon my return. What was the right answer? Wonderful? Horrible? Emotional? Exhausting?
Exhilarating?
Yes.
Years ago, in the midst of the emotional turmoil of adolescence, I read The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank's iconic diary, and developed a deep lifelong interest in a topic that most people find depressing at best, horrifying at worst. Yet I marveled at the humanity of a world tragedy that seethed with death, life, sorrow, joy. At the time I had no way of knowing that my chosen profession- teaching- would provide me with the opportunity to share the story of the Holocaust with hundreds- even thousands- of future students.
The chance to spend three weeks immersed in Holocaust study was irresistible. The program is subsidized by the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants, an organization encouraging educators to teach the Holocaust from the perspective of Jewish resistance, remembrance, and artifact study. On a steamy July morning I kissed my family goodbye and boarded the first of many flights that would take me from the bustle of Washington D.C, across the sweeping deserts and cramped streets of Israel, through the quiet hamlets and solemn memorials of Germany and Poland.
I wanted quotes, anecdotes, statistics- the
flashy little facts that make adolescents sit up, pay attention, and connect to
something beyond their own world. Something that, to them, is ancient history.
Instead, I got heartbreak. Daily tears, sorrow,
and disbelief.For me, the Holocaust became a story of women. Entire museums are devoted to remembering the men who made the fateful decisions and placed the orders that resulted in murder on a mass scale. History books tell the stories of the men who led their countries in the fight against Hitler's tyranny. But we are missing the names of so many of the women who faced choiceless choices, made impossible decisions, and lived and died under the most heartbreaking of circumstances.
My goal, my mission, is to give voice to the woman who stood on a train platform and, recognizing the source of the smoke that rose unceasingly toward the sky, pushed her son toward the other line- the one that would give him a chance to live even as her own story was coming to an end.
Or the woman who saved her meager food rations for her children, knowing that shortening her own life was the only way to offer them a chance to live for a few more days, months, years until this nightmare would end.
Or the woman who opened her home to another mother's child in the hopes that one small life could be saved. Could she have imagined the agony of that mother who buttoned her child into a warm coat, placed a suitcase in impossibly small hands, and kissed a cheek, quite possibly- probably- for the last time before sending her very own heart into an unknown world with nothing but hope to guide her agonizing decision?
Those women, each one a small voice echoing among the millions and millions for whom the Holocaust became a part of their story, deserve for their stories to be told and celebrated. In the words of Maya Angelou, "History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, however, if faced with courage, need not be lived again."
Now, decades later, many of the voices who lived to tell their stories are being lost to time. Soon, the Holocaust will no longer exist in the memory of any man or woman alive. It is the fate, however, of mothers to remember. Who better than the givers of life and nurturers of body and spirit to celebrate the lives that were lost and the lives that were saved? To remember in quiet, singular ways and to remember in loud, public displays of grief, passion, despair. To understand that each woman and child had a voice that still calls out for solace and relief from a horror that is impossible to understand and impossible to reconcile with what we believe about human compassion.
During one of my last evenings in Jerusalem I strolled through a street filled with shops and restaurants that were just reopening after being closed for the Sabbath. Faintly, at first, I heard the strains of music, before it fairly bloomed into a joyful song as dozens of vibrant, happy teenagers literally sang their faith into the streets. It was a joyous testament to the resilience of the human spirit.
I knew I would absorb an astounding amount of information and meet dedicated educators who would help me develop my skills in teaching this sensitive subject. I was supposed to become a better teacher, but I didn't know I would return a better wife, mother, daughter, friend, woman.
