Revisiting My Father’s Holocaust Experiences
- 42 minutes ago
- 2 min read
International Holocaust Remembrance Day, or the International Day in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, was January 27, commemorating the genocide of two thirds of the European Jewish population by the German Nazis. This is the day which aligns with the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp in which over 1.2 million Jews were murdered.
My father was a Holocaust survivor of Treblinka concentration camp where nearly one million Jews were killed. He was among the last thirty men who survived the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and among the last sixty seven men who survived the Treblinka Uprising. He survived the unspeakable, and screamed of it in his nightmares which I heard, other times overhearing what was thought I could not hear, and being told some.
After visiting Warsaw and Treblinka last summer I found out much more about his life experiences, his survival, and how he survived. I have decided to write a memoir of his and my mother’s Holocaust experiences and the impact upon me, born in Germany right after the war while they were in Bergen Belsen Displaced Persons camp.
In 2020, my granddaughter was taking a Holocaust class and would get extra credit if I wrote what I knew about their experiences. It took me months and with great emotional difficulty then, here is the blog post I wrote, published November 19, 2020.
I learned this year that due to the Eric Erickson psychosocial stage of development I have reached in my life, I am now able to begin to address the intergenerational Holocaust trauma I experienced in my life. Again, it is not without emotional difficulty to revisit.
As I embark on a memoir writing retreat in Guatemala, I know that my exploration into their life and their Holocaust experiences will bring new light to me and it is my intention to share what will fill in the pieces of “knowing and not knowing” as a child of Holocaust survivors.
It is a responsibility to be a witness, and by reading this post and sharing it, you too are part of those who acknowledge the evil and horror so that it does not happen again.
I have not yet been able to listen to my father’s tapes, or read the transcript, but I will before I finish and publish my memoir. Thank you for bearing witness. Thank you for sharing this journey with me.
Mema
