I am a reform jew who is one of the lucky ones. My immediate family came to America before WW2 - most in an effort to escape the pogroms and antisemitism that plagued their existences . We are assimilated and successful as a family. I've lived in New England, outside of the cities that are large jewish outposts and have been called a k*ke, had my nose made fun of.. I've also lived on the upper west side of New York and in a more religious area of Miami. I, too, have felt keenly the history of our people and while we have benefited from assimilation in the US, I have always felt that the tides could turn, that history repeats itself. I've seen the apathy of non-jewish kids at school when the Holocaust came up.. To them, it's just another assembly in the long line of educational commemorations. My daughter has told me of some of her classmates laughing at the Holocaust Museum, while she and other jewish kids were crying. I ponder what we as a people could become if we all united in Israel and all of our intelligence and success funneled into our own country, if we could grow and sustain our successes for the good of our people? I guess as I get older, the idea of Israel as my own personal home gets more real as I realize that the rest of the world will never change and will remain at its heart, apathetic to the lives of Jews..
My Mothers maiden name was Nachemstein, when she came to England in 1939 as a 16 year old she changed it to Nash so no one would ever know she might be Jewish Her parents sold everything they had to their ‘Non Jewish friends’ to be able to get her a student exit visa. They were deported to Minsk a week after she left . As with so many of her contemporaries she never saw her parents ever again.
She lived with the guilt for the rest of her life.
This is not an unusual story for many Jews, we just live with it and accept it . The real moral is not that there are evil people, there are always evil people , it’s that ordinary people just watch let it happen and do nothing.
We as Jews have a responsibility to make sure that everyone understands what the holocaust was.
I was privileged, as a non-Jewish person, to join a group from the Greater Manchester area on a visit led by Jeremy Kurnedz (many of his family perished at Treblinka) to Poland in March 2019. Our journey visited Warsaw, Treblinka, Majdanek, Lublin, Krakow and finally Auschwitz-Birkenau and I was profoundly moved by it, but often most particularly by the proximity to everyday homes and thereby everyday people going about their everyday business when unspeakable acts of murder and violence were taking place within metres of where they were. I can't ever comprehend the close family impact of the Holocaust as it is completely removed from my experience and the history of my life, but if I can use my voice, however imperfect, to amplify the need to truly make 'Never Again' mean it, I'll do my best.
I went on the March of the Living in high school and found it very odd to go to some of the concentration camps which were raised before the allies came through (like Treblinka) and it's just a lush green field as you say (with a few landmarks/statues) and you had people playing in it like it was a park.
My great grandfather Simcha ben (I don't know) had 27 children. He lived in Kiev. He and a few relatives - and my grandfather Zvi (Harry) - came to the US in the early 1920s. The remainder were in Ukraine (though people called it Russia) and Poland. That's all I know. Nothing more. I can't imagine. I think of what might have been. The non-Jewish world - and it seems some of the Jewish world - does not know that we are as one family. I grieve, more than one day a year.
Jan 27, 2022·edited Jan 27, 2022Liked by Eve Barlow
Thank you for this. My family is also from Lithuania and was in the ghetto at Kovno. Perhaps our families were friends. If you have any family members still around from back them, ask about the Chazans. Maybe there is a connection. I couldn't have said this any better and your posts are spot on every time.
This is strong writing, I am glad I am subscribing, thank you.
All who do not take this into consideration when doing the regular waving of hands, "All racism is bad you know, it's not only anti-semitism that matters", always replay, "yes, but yes, but no." Because it is simply not true. People then get all "But i didn't man it that way". Perhaps you didn't but your historical and cultural background did. As Baddiel wrote "Jews don't count". I'm not agreeing with all his analysis, like "jewface" analogy etc. but he does have a real point. We are the exception to the rule of anti-racism most of the time.
On another note, the most striking in the image is the form field in German "Vorstrafen:" transl: "Prior convictions" and it says "keine" transl: NONE.
I am a reform jew who is one of the lucky ones. My immediate family came to America before WW2 - most in an effort to escape the pogroms and antisemitism that plagued their existences . We are assimilated and successful as a family. I've lived in New England, outside of the cities that are large jewish outposts and have been called a k*ke, had my nose made fun of.. I've also lived on the upper west side of New York and in a more religious area of Miami. I, too, have felt keenly the history of our people and while we have benefited from assimilation in the US, I have always felt that the tides could turn, that history repeats itself. I've seen the apathy of non-jewish kids at school when the Holocaust came up.. To them, it's just another assembly in the long line of educational commemorations. My daughter has told me of some of her classmates laughing at the Holocaust Museum, while she and other jewish kids were crying. I ponder what we as a people could become if we all united in Israel and all of our intelligence and success funneled into our own country, if we could grow and sustain our successes for the good of our people? I guess as I get older, the idea of Israel as my own personal home gets more real as I realize that the rest of the world will never change and will remain at its heart, apathetic to the lives of Jews..
My Mothers maiden name was Nachemstein, when she came to England in 1939 as a 16 year old she changed it to Nash so no one would ever know she might be Jewish Her parents sold everything they had to their ‘Non Jewish friends’ to be able to get her a student exit visa. They were deported to Minsk a week after she left . As with so many of her contemporaries she never saw her parents ever again.
She lived with the guilt for the rest of her life.
This is not an unusual story for many Jews, we just live with it and accept it . The real moral is not that there are evil people, there are always evil people , it’s that ordinary people just watch let it happen and do nothing.
We as Jews have a responsibility to make sure that everyone understands what the holocaust was.
Otherwise it will happen again.
I was privileged, as a non-Jewish person, to join a group from the Greater Manchester area on a visit led by Jeremy Kurnedz (many of his family perished at Treblinka) to Poland in March 2019. Our journey visited Warsaw, Treblinka, Majdanek, Lublin, Krakow and finally Auschwitz-Birkenau and I was profoundly moved by it, but often most particularly by the proximity to everyday homes and thereby everyday people going about their everyday business when unspeakable acts of murder and violence were taking place within metres of where they were. I can't ever comprehend the close family impact of the Holocaust as it is completely removed from my experience and the history of my life, but if I can use my voice, however imperfect, to amplify the need to truly make 'Never Again' mean it, I'll do my best.
I went on the March of the Living in high school and found it very odd to go to some of the concentration camps which were raised before the allies came through (like Treblinka) and it's just a lush green field as you say (with a few landmarks/statues) and you had people playing in it like it was a park.
My great grandfather Simcha ben (I don't know) had 27 children. He lived in Kiev. He and a few relatives - and my grandfather Zvi (Harry) - came to the US in the early 1920s. The remainder were in Ukraine (though people called it Russia) and Poland. That's all I know. Nothing more. I can't imagine. I think of what might have been. The non-Jewish world - and it seems some of the Jewish world - does not know that we are as one family. I grieve, more than one day a year.
Eve, thanks for this work.
Terrific article, Eve. My great grandmother’s entire family was murdered at Babi Yar, or so we guessed. They lived in Berdichev in the Ukraine.
Thank you for what you do!!!
Please keep doing what you are doing. Thank you.
Thank you for this. My family is also from Lithuania and was in the ghetto at Kovno. Perhaps our families were friends. If you have any family members still around from back them, ask about the Chazans. Maybe there is a connection. I couldn't have said this any better and your posts are spot on every time.
This is strong writing, I am glad I am subscribing, thank you.
All who do not take this into consideration when doing the regular waving of hands, "All racism is bad you know, it's not only anti-semitism that matters", always replay, "yes, but yes, but no." Because it is simply not true. People then get all "But i didn't man it that way". Perhaps you didn't but your historical and cultural background did. As Baddiel wrote "Jews don't count". I'm not agreeing with all his analysis, like "jewface" analogy etc. but he does have a real point. We are the exception to the rule of anti-racism most of the time.
On another note, the most striking in the image is the form field in German "Vorstrafen:" transl: "Prior convictions" and it says "keine" transl: NONE.
Her only crime was to be born a jewess.