לעולם לא עוד

[andrewducker]

Several years ago some members of my family and I went in search of my father's missing family.

They'd gone missing about 65 years ago.

Well, I say missing. The location of some of them were very well documented.

The Nazis were good at that kind of thing.

We visited Theresienstadt, before carrying on to Prague and then Brno, that being where my grandfather's family had come from. I learned that he had had a family from before he fled to England, and that most of them had not survived. We visited the Pinkas synagogue, where the names of the dead are inscribed, and take up more space than you can comfortable imagine.



We went over the border into Poland, and visited Auschwitz, a harrowing day that was lightened only by the telling of jokes in awful taste on the walk back from the gas chambers to the car.

Because sometimes you can either laugh or cry, and at that moment we chose to celebrate life.

Some day, I hope to make the journey again. I was too young then to fully appreciate it, and I would like to see it again with new eyes.

Today is Holocaust memorial day, and I am remembering.

Comments

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

That really sums it up - "we chose to celebrate life" - and remember.

[ami-bender.livejournal.com]

Amen. Did the same thing ten years ago. Its one of those things that words can not describe. I had the same feelings when I visited Yad Vashem as well.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Been to Yad Vashem.

Have no desire to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Where, similarly, one whole branch of my family rests.

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

I'm hesitant to ask about the t-shirt.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

It was one of the small things that really drove it home for me. Seeing the identity papers of a distant relative that my dad had managed to get copies of, all stamped with a swastika and eagle and "Juden" in big red gothic letters.

[andrewducker]

Some other time :->

(I need to do a post about offensiveness anyway)

[andrewducker]

I've never been to Israel. It's on the list, but I'm hesitant...

[zz]

i happened to go at the one time it hasn't been a warzone afaict, 1992. went to yad vashem too.

in other news, the only photo i have of my german granddad has him in nazi uniform. :>

[lilitufire.livejournal.com]

That synagogue, is, well, yes. No words.

[ratmist.livejournal.com]

I really liked this post, even though it made me sad.

[andrewducker]

Thank you.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

I went in 1982.

On a sort of zionist youth leadership training trip that, ironically, left me feeling that something was very wrong with Israel and that zionism was part of the problem, not the answer.

[pinkhebe.livejournal.com]

I remembered too. Yad Vashen helped me go to Auschwitz a couple of years ago: we walked out along those tracks, because the Rabbi with us said that too many people had not been able to do that.