When we were kids, we saw them. They lived across the street. He was a teacher and she was a librarian at the neighborhood library. There were other neighbors like them along the street living behind closed shutters, who shared a despondent demeanor, unfamiliar language, nervousness, a tendency to yell, and mostly the numbers etched into their exposed skin.
I imagine that only once we reached the 3rd and 4th grade we started to truly hear about what happened “there.” For many years, even though they lived among us, nobody really explained to us who they were, what happened to them, and how it’s related to us. We heard it through the rumor mill, half secrets, hints, and parts of terrible stories.
We grew up with the main facts, which were revealed to us slowly. Here and there a story was written, or a book. We could hear, and we did hear, the steps of the Nazis looking for us at our beds at night in central Israel or in some kibbutz. Even those who did not come from a Holocaust-surviving family and who could not boast of even one grandfather in Auschwitz dreamed that they were hiding from the Nazis.
It took almost a generation until the “Holocaust” turned into a “day,” until “Shoah studies” were introduced, and until members of the second generation exposed themselves and their parents, and ever since then we have seen a flood of stories, movies, books, testimonials, journeys to “there,” and all the other things being done today so that, heaven forbid, we won’t forget. Remember and never forget. Never again shall we go like sheep to the slaughter. Never again.
Wasted stories
It is completely politically incorrect or inappropriate in general to question Shoah studies, their importance, or the desire to remember and never forget. It is improper to question the exposed pain and the national opening of old wounds. Yet nonetheless, I find myself wondering, what good does this do? And another forbidden question, haven’t we gone too far? Tell me about one good thing that came out of it; a truly good thing.
I’m completely in favor of national memory. I’m completely in favor of studying history and of teaching the lesson, and also in favor of the power that such significant memory could have given us. Yet all of it did not happen. We remember, but we don’t learn; we remember the same way picking at one’s wounds gives one sick enjoyment. We remember in order to justify our post-trauma, the fact that we’re screwed up, the fact that we’re right, and that we have no other choice.
Yes, we all suffer from post-traumatic syndrome. All of us. Yet this did not turn us into better people, less racist, or a light unto the nations. Holocaust survivors wasted their stories, memories, and pain on us. Too bad we didn’t encourage them to remain silent.