Real Live Girl - Day

5:22PM - Brief Uncharacteristic Nazi Vent

A little bit of media coverage of late regarding the possible seizure in the near future of Aribert Heim, "Doctor Death." If indeed still alive, he's in his mid-90's. Some people feel he's too old to bother with. I say his age is a giant reason to redouble the efforts to bring him to justice. It is not only the Nazis who are dying of old age; it is the survivors. This is giving the Holocaust deniers and revisionists too much comfortable distance from a catastrophe of the (actually quite recent) past. We need to remind people not just that the Shoah occurred (duh) but just how idiotic the "hoax" and "profiteering Jew" dipshits are every single time they open their mouths and vomit their numbskullery. I say, do what it takes. Find this killer. You don't have to whack him about the face. You can gently handcuff him and offer him Sanka, for all I care. But do what must be done. And heck, isn't it disrespectful of the elderly to behave as if we only care about the young and spry mass-murderers?

For 8 years of my education I was in daily contact with survivors. They were my teachers. Decades after the war, I was lucky (yes, lucky!) enough to have the opportunity to take them for granted. My memory is not one of being force-fed horror stories. It is more of a gentle acceptance that "this is the way it was." I don't recall many personal stories. They just didn't spend their time dwelling on specifics. Two rather "casual" anecdotes come to mind right now, though. These were not part of large discussions, but gifts of remembrance that had some connection to whatever the topic of the moment was.

Rabbi W. related how the Nazis put him under freezing cold water shower then moved him over to boiling hot water shower, over and over, for hours and hours.

Mrs. W. told us about being hungry and dying of thirst. I remember she tapped her wooden desk and said, "My tongue was as dry as this table."

Those are pretty mild recollections, considering what we know transpired on a daily basis. But they were offered as gems, in my opinion. Little tiny bits of memory for us kids to take with us and digest as we would. 25 years later, I remember Mrs. W. tapping on her desk. This was her LIFE. She LIVED with these memories. There was no way for her to use her words and make us feel what she felt by diving into bloody details. She taught by living, and letting her experiences form her identity. What choice did she have? And how lucky I am. Because Rabbi W. and Mrs. W. and all my other survivor teachers were witnesses. They were and are primary sources. And I was privy to those primary sources. So now I am witness to them.

Keep this in the news. It is necessary.