Daily Excerpt: One Family: Indivisible (Greenebaum) - Holocaust and Hate
The following excerpt comes from One Family: Indivisible (Greenebaum)
One thing I always felt as a child was safe. My
parents and indeed my grandparents and my sister all helped to make me feel
warm, loved, and totally secure. That all disappeared at dinner one evening in
one, horrible, life-changing moment. I’m guessing I was about six, maybe seven
— whatever the age is when a child’s mind begins to register what people are
actually talking about.
Something
may have happened in the news that day. But for whatever reason, the Holocaust
was discussed at dinner. I’m sure the topic must have come up before, but this
was the first time that it registered. With all children, I think you can tell
them things when they are quite young and those things simply don’t compute.
Then one day it suddenly makes sense. For me, this was that day. Six million
Jews, exterminated. Two out of three in Europe (where’s Europe?). One out of
three on the planet! Gone. Murdered. Stepped on like so many ants. And I’m
Jewish. I’m Jewish!
To
be honest, at that age, six million was just a number — it was a big number to
be sure, but only a number. But my immediate family was my father, my mother,
and my sister. One out of three Jews murdered meant one of them — gone. Two out
of three meant that only one would be left alive. That I could comprehend.
It was devastating. The terror of the Holocaust was made
clear. One out of three on Earth, two out of three in Europe murdered for the
“crime” of being Jewish. I don’t know how to describe this other than to say
that completely, to my roots, I was terrified as I have never been terrified
before or since.
I
not only knew that I was Jewish, but also that all my neighbors were Jewish
(though why this was I didn’t learn for years). I was not yet old enough to
know what being “Jewish” meant, but whatever it meant, whatever being Jewish
was, I was Jewish. This was clear. I was Jewish. One out of three people like
me, whatever “like me” meant, had been gassed, or shot, or hung, or tortured
and starved to death. One out of three. My father, my mother or my sister. One
out of three!! How could this happen? I asked.
It
happened because some people hate Jews.
Why??
What did we do to them?
Nothing.
Is
there something bad about being Jewish?
No.
Then
why?
Some
people, particularly Christians, hate Jews. A Christian bigshot[1]
helped to make it possible.
But
that was across the ocean (as in Europe). We lived in the United States. And
the war was over.
“Then
we’re safe?” From Hitler, yes, Dad told us. But there are people in the United
States, again, mostly Christians, even in our city, who hate Jews and want to
hurt them. It’s called anti-Semitism.
I
think that this was when it first registered that there had been things like
pogroms, where Jews had been tortured and murdered, and ghettos where Jews were
enclosed to keep them separate from “civil” society. Maybe Dad explained these
to me to explain what “anti-Semitism” meant.
It
was shattering. I don’t know if I can possibly convey just how shattering it
was. I don’t think I fully understood death yet. But it wasn’t death so much as
realizing that there were people who hated me, hated me, wanted to kill me sight unseen, never having met me. They
didn’t know me, but they hated me. And they always would, no matter what I said
or did.
That
night, that moment, everything changed. My world was no longer safe. They hated
me. They hated my parents. They hated my sister. They hated Nana and Grandma
Helen. How many Christians were there? Did they all hate me? What was I to do?
What did it mean? What if America produced a Hitler?
But
then Mom talked to me. I don’t remember if she said this at the dinner table or
not. Perhaps, seeing how distraught I was after dinner, she talked to me alone.
I don’t remember. But I will never forget what she said.
She
looked straight at me. I knew that whatever she was going to tell me would be
important.
“Do
you like that some people hate you?” Mom asked me.
“No,”
I whispered.
“Do
you like what it feels like to be hated?”
“No.”
“Then
don’t ever hate.”
I
will carry that moment with me as long as I live. Mom’s words became central to
my life. As time passed, it also pounded at my mind that the Holocaust had
happened in Europe, not the United States, and I was born afterwards, albeit
only a few years. Yet, learning that because I was Jewish some people hated me
and that the world was not safe for Jews had a profound impact on me.
As
I grew, I began to ponder what it must be like for a black child that very
first time that she or he comprehends that slavery happened here — not in Europe, it happened here. And that after slavery was
outlawed, Jim Crow happened here —
not in Europe, it happened here. And
that racism is still alive and well
in the United States. Some people despise, fear and even hate people of color,
all people of color, without ever having met them. What a wrenching,
devastating effect that must have. How can it be anything but life-changing?
Eric Hoffer Award finalist
American Bookfest Best Books Award finalist
For more posts about Steven and his books, click HERE.
Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter
Follow MSI Press on X, Face Book, and Instagram.
in exchange for reviewing a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book?
Contact editor@msipress.com.
Want an author-signed copy of this book?
Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25)
and concurrently send a written request to orders@msipress.com.
You can!
Find their contact information on our Authors' Pages.
Comments
Post a Comment