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.
Showing posts with label Second World War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Second World War. Show all posts
Saturday, January 11, 2014
Publication
https://www.CreateSpace.com/4025278M. The creation of the book has led me to finding people, letters, and photographs, which I never imagined existed.
I have found a cousin who not only had my father's letters, but had photographs of my family in Poland before the Second World War. I never imagined finding these materials, which I donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) on May 9, 2013. I had met a member of USHMM at a conference and was asked if I might donate the original letters cited in the book to the museum in Washington, D.C. May 9 was a significant date in our family, as it was the day my father felt free of concentration camp Theresienstadt. It was finding a new cousin who had the letters, and the cousin and her sister agreeing to send the letters to the USA, which are all small miracles! Finding a new cousin so many years after the Shoah (Holocaust) is truly amazing. Thanks Cousin Nira for sending the letters to me for donation to USHMM!
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