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tamara_russo[Two days early]
See, you can't see it. Some of us can't really define it - how it affects us. It can be the smallest things - some distant ritual that was passed on by our father or mother. We do it, without thinking about it, without realizing the origin of it.
No, you can't throw out that bread. No, we can't have a dog. No, we can't take the train. These are some of these things. The most obvious of them, but there are others. Thousand others. I suspect that studies will be conducted on the matter in a thousand years still, to see how one huge event changed the psych of an entire community, entire country.
We all know someone who has roots in there. Most of us of certain descent know the family stories. Can pinpoint the people who were left there and those who were lucky. Huh. Lucky. Right. You should see some of them. I wouldn't call that lucky. To be left alone, of your family, at the age of 17, with nothing in the world, with no home, no parents, no friends - nowhere to go. Go from "Child" to "Adult" in a nanosecond, when you hear that sound. When you see the stains in the snow, the drag marks.
Third Generation. I am one. I'm proud to be one. My grandfather was that 17 year old. He ran. He wasn't in any of the camps. Lucky, right? Lucky, to swim across frozen rivers, when you could be shot by either one of the soldiers on either side, if they but feel like it. Lucky, to be forced to work beyond any human capability, for a scrawny 17 year old. Lucky, to know that your life will never be the same, that everything and everyone you loved are gone and will never come back, but you made it out alive. Alone.
And lucky, because after years of searching, you found one. One of them, distantly related, who also survived.
And still believe you could have done something. That you could have saved them.
And that seeps through me. Through us. Second Generation. Third Generation. The Forth is growing up now, parts of it becoming more ugly than we care to grasp. How did that change me? What did that do to all of us? See, when I look at my arm I can sometimes see a number. 70 years difference, and it might have been me. Us.
This thing, this memory - running through my veins - it's like a poison and elixir at once. I chose to believe that if a 17 year old boy could survive that hell, could become the person I knew and loved (love, LOVE) so much, if he could have shed his fear - so can we.
People say it screwed us over. That some things cannot be fixed. So fucking what? Sometimes, some things can be better off after they break. It just needs the work - and the understanding that it did break.
For my grandfather, Shmuel Werter, who was never afraid, and fixed what was broken as well as he could 1922-2009
See, you can't see it. Some of us can't really define it - how it affects us. It can be the smallest things - some distant ritual that was passed on by our father or mother. We do it, without thinking about it, without realizing the origin of it.
No, you can't throw out that bread. No, we can't have a dog. No, we can't take the train. These are some of these things. The most obvious of them, but there are others. Thousand others. I suspect that studies will be conducted on the matter in a thousand years still, to see how one huge event changed the psych of an entire community, entire country.
We all know someone who has roots in there. Most of us of certain descent know the family stories. Can pinpoint the people who were left there and those who were lucky. Huh. Lucky. Right. You should see some of them. I wouldn't call that lucky. To be left alone, of your family, at the age of 17, with nothing in the world, with no home, no parents, no friends - nowhere to go. Go from "Child" to "Adult" in a nanosecond, when you hear that sound. When you see the stains in the snow, the drag marks.
Third Generation. I am one. I'm proud to be one. My grandfather was that 17 year old. He ran. He wasn't in any of the camps. Lucky, right? Lucky, to swim across frozen rivers, when you could be shot by either one of the soldiers on either side, if they but feel like it. Lucky, to be forced to work beyond any human capability, for a scrawny 17 year old. Lucky, to know that your life will never be the same, that everything and everyone you loved are gone and will never come back, but you made it out alive. Alone.
And lucky, because after years of searching, you found one. One of them, distantly related, who also survived.
And still believe you could have done something. That you could have saved them.
And that seeps through me. Through us. Second Generation. Third Generation. The Forth is growing up now, parts of it becoming more ugly than we care to grasp. How did that change me? What did that do to all of us? See, when I look at my arm I can sometimes see a number. 70 years difference, and it might have been me. Us.
This thing, this memory - running through my veins - it's like a poison and elixir at once. I chose to believe that if a 17 year old boy could survive that hell, could become the person I knew and loved (love, LOVE) so much, if he could have shed his fear - so can we.
People say it screwed us over. That some things cannot be fixed. So fucking what? Sometimes, some things can be better off after they break. It just needs the work - and the understanding that it did break.
For my grandfather, Shmuel Werter, who was never afraid, and fixed what was broken as well as he could 1922-2009
