Don't Forget Us

During our journey through the museum, the three of us barely spoke. We arrived at an exhibit, which displayed how certain children perished during the Holocaust. There were photographs with a detailed description of the extermination of these children by lethal injection. There was a description of hospitals wherein the doctors decided who would die. "How could a physician, whose profession is based on such a high ethical standard, do such a thing?" It was almost too much material to digest in one day. My mind drifted to thoughts of my mother and uncle and what would have happened to them if my grandfather did not have the foresight to get them out of Germany in time.

As we walked through each exhibit, staring at the many photographs of Holocaust victims, I found myself searching to see if I could find a picture of my great-grandparents. I never really knew what happened to them. I thought about the story of how they perished in the "ovens" as my mother often said. I wondered which concentration camp they were in and how long they lived once they arrived there. I had so many questions, but there was no one left who could answer them.

At the exhibit on "Kristallnacht" (the "Night of Broken Glass"), a turning point for Hitler’s power over the Jews in Germany, I read about the nights of November 9^th and November 10^th, 1938, when gangs of Nazi youths roamed through Jewish neighborhoods breaking windows of Jewish businesses and homes, burning synagogues and looting. I had my grandmother’s immigration card with me so I pulled it out to once again look at the date she left Germany. It was issued at the American Consulate at Stuttgart, Germany on October 25, 1938. I was so surprised to see they had left only two weeks before those fateful nights. "If they had waited and tried to leave even one month later, I might not have been standing there!" My mother, due to her age, most certainly would not have been spared. My four sisters, all my nieces, nephews, my own daughter and I would never have been born. As I read through all of this information, I realized for the first time how the Holocaust imprinted my life. As I thought about my past misgivings, as to why I was so "different" from everyone else, I was struck by a dramatic understanding of the gravity of the Holocaust. Being "different" fifty years ago meant a death sentence for my great-grandparents.