Miracles

Finding a cousin was a miracle, but small miracles have continued since the publication of "Walk Forward."

A wonderful lady, who at 12 years old was on the final journey with my 9 year old sister, responded to a letter I sent to her in Oklahoma. I was privileged to visit this incredible person named Eva, who gave me a chance to envision a bit of the most complicated and horrible world as my lost sister might have seen it. Had Eva's hair been blond and her eyes blue, I would have believed that perhaps I had finally found my lost sibling! We know we are not sisters, but family relationships are yet to be researched.

Eva and I found we have very much in common. The more Eva and I search, the more similarities we find. We have uncovered many coincidences, but their true meanings are yet to be revealed. Not only do we like the same foods, have similar furniture in our homes, and the same desire to tell the story so that history does not repeat itself, we both feel strongly that the 1.5 million children who were murdered in the Shoah should never be forgotten. The children were not numbers, but had names and wonderful lives before the events of the Second World War destroyed their childlike qualities and hopes. Eva is a survivor of the Shoah, I am not a survivor, but the daughter of a survivor. I am a member of the second generation (2g), the generation who heard the first person stories, felt the enormous pain of the survivor (our parents') generation, and who continue to search for lost family members in lifelong attempts to put the pieces of the complex puzzle together.

As members of the second generation, we did not experience the Shoah in person, but we have the obligation to keep the true stories alive. We must do the best we can to publish the truth as we know it and encourage our peers to do the same. We owe it to those who can not speak, who dare not write, who are afraid to remember or publish the truth, and the millions who died long before their time. Hundreds of millions of words are lost forever, they never made it into books!

Genocide has horrible effects on many generations. Man's inhumanity to man remains with the young as fear and pain are not easily forgotten.

If you have a secret to survival or to what truly happened, be brave and share it with the world. If you have a story to tell, or have been privileged to hear a survivor's story, "Walk Forward," and please share it for the historical record and humanity!

Kindness, knowledge, and truth are first steps in healing our deepest wounds.