Yom Ha'Shoa
In every life, in every culture, there are events and stories which become so deeply ingrained in an individual personality or a societal memory that they simply cannot be left behind. For the Jews, there are so many. Thousands of years of history filled with far too many national tragedies. All my life I have been exposed to these tragedies, as well as the triumphs, of the Jewish narrative. Some were so far away, so long ago, that I could never connect to them, no matter how hard I tried. I couldn't imagine the suffering. I couldn't realize the people. They were stuck as characters on paper. Characters I didn't know, couldn't relate to. But when it comes to the Holocaust, the most glaring blight of the 20th century, I had the opportunity to hear the stories from the survivors themselves. They would come to our school, show us pictures, show us scars, tattoos, and tears that will never fade away. I used to sit and wonder, "If the Nazis came to get me, would ...