Rebellious Thoughts of a Woman

I spent the day today with a Holocaust survivor. I was her mode of transportation to and from school, and I listened to her speak about her experiences during the Holocaust in front of an audience of a few hundred teenagers. Afterwards, she explained that at first she did not think to talk of her experiences because she hadn't been in a camp, and did not see her experiences as so bad. Then she spoke of a friend who escaped from Europe during the Holocaust and stayed in Cuba until the end of the war. She said that that friend doesn't talk of her experiences because she feels that she had it "easy." This woman then said that she realized that each person's experience is part of the whole story, and that each story must be told and understood, to grasp and acknowledge and learn from what happened in Europe less than a lifetime ago. Each person's life and experiences are of importance. The telling is never easy, she said, but she realizes how important it is, how helpful it may prove to be.

She connected that drive to tell the story to the AIDs Memorial Quilt, and how each panel represents a life and a part of that tragic story.

Pain. Degrees of pain. Perhaps the extent of the pain a person lives through, and with, must be accompanied by a telling, with a talking through, to help the self and those around oneself. A person suffers alone, a person retells together. Is that the affirmation of life after such incredible suffering?

Zechor. Remember the six million Jewish people killed in the Holocaust. Remember, too, to fight all forms of hatred and oppression.