Eleven years ago, I silently wandered the halls of Yad Vashem, which is one of the world’s most renowned Holocaust museums.
Located in Israel, this memorial holds a record of the atrocities that occurred throughout Europe during the reign of the Third Reich.
Through our studies in school and literature, we all gain a general understanding of the Holocaust. I remember experiencing the cramped quarters of the secret annex while reading The Diary of Anne Frank. I soberly digested the inhumane treatment of prisoners at Auschwitz through Elie Wiesel’s eyes in Night.
While our history books and the literary greats paint a broad picture, nothing brings the reality of this glaring stain on our world’s past quite like testimony from those who lived it.
This testimony echoed in my ears at Yad Vashem. The voices of survivors recounting their real-life nightmares played through my headphones as I combed through the exhibits. I don’t remember every detail. The big picture is what remains.
But I will never forget the one part that took my breath away.
I stood in the middle of a circular room, with thousands of eyes staring at me, memorialized in individual photographs.
In this room full of history, I saw myself.
I was staring at the history of what could have been me. If I had lived in a different country, at a different time.
It was almost my grandfather.
My Pop Pop grew up in Kassel, Germany, and came of age during the rise of the Third Reich. He was only nine years old when Hitler was named Reichschancellor of Germany. Like most of our children, he lived a normal childhood with friends of varying religions and backgrounds.
Even as a young boy, he was conscious of the growth of the Nazi party. Hitler’s hateful rhetoric and narrative led to growing concern. These concerns rapidly morphed into reality after his rise to power. There was an increase in Jewish persecution, economic restraints placed on Jews, physical violence, and most notably, a permeating onslaught of horrific propaganda.
This propaganda led to the “us versus them” mentality in Germany against its Jewish citizens. People were scared to associate or do business with Jews due to repercussions. Many Jewish businesses, including my great-grandfather’s, eventually suffered and closed.
My Pop Pop says this gradually impacted his friendships. Those he grew up with were fairly loyal and protective, but they still got wrapped up in the anti-semitic message. When he would question them on how they could say such horrible things, his friends would respond, “but you are not like the other Jews,” referring to the vitriolic images and propaganda that you may be familiar with from your history books.
Eventually, his family, along with many others, realized that staying in Germany was no longer safe. Many left for other European countries, which ended up being a fruitless effort as the Nazis took over much of the continent. Some went to what is now Israel, others for South America, but my Pop Pop’s family was lucky enough to immigrate to the United States in 1938. This was harder to do at the time due to immigration quotas. Fortunately, they had an American sponsor.
Pop Pop later learned from family friends who left after them that the Nazis came looking for him and his father on Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass.”
We all know what would have happened from there.
I share this with you today, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, as a reminder that the Holocaust was a reality that we all must remember and continue to learn from today. I do not think it is lost on any of us that while there is so much good in our world, there has also been a rise in blind hatred based on differences in recent years.
In his memoir he wrote for our family, my Pop Pop wrote:
“In retrospect, it seems incredible that a nation which was culturally and intellectually advanced could sink to the level of brutality and depravity which existed during that period. In that, there is a lesson for future generations and all countries.”
Be kind to each other. Try to see our common threads. Never forget.
