I made a to do list this morning, and am only 2 points shy of completing it. And I might still manage one of them before I go to bed.
I watched a short documentary tonight called Kike Like Me. I knew it had something to do with Jewish identity and that appealed to me because my own Jewish identity has become a bit more important to me lately. But this wasn’t what I had in mind.
It was less about what Jews think of themselves, less about how they identify themselves and more, really, about the anti-semitism that still exists in the world. And that always depresses me.
Bigotry in general disturbs me to no end, but when it is aimed at me and mine, it’s impossible not to take more offense at that.
There was a lot about the state of Israel and Palestine. There was the trip to Berlin and later to Krakow and Aushwitz. There were pictures I could have gone without seeing.
It was only an hour. A good film. I recorded it and am going to make my brother watch it.
But what it really makes me think about is how I react to the Holocaust and how the Holocaust relates to me.
My brother for many many years was a bit of a Holocaust historian. He read book after book about it. Biographies, histories, pictorials. He saw all the movies. I’d say the climax of his studies was about the time of Schindler’s List. I sat in the front row with him at the Galeria in Dallas on opening night. It was his birthday. The place was packed, and the only seats left were front and center. And we were squished all together in there. Which is kind of ironic, really. But I wasn’t squished in there for very long. Maybe an hour at the most. Then I got sick and spent the rest of the time in the bathroom.
A few years later he spent a summer in Germany as part of his BA. He was not far at all from Bergen Belsen. From Anne Frank’s attic. But he didn’t go to either. And shortly after he got back his passion to know more died off.
I’ve always reacted poorly to the Holocaust. That sounds funny, but you know what I mean. I hope you know what I mean.
I always knew about the Holocaust. It was just something I knew about growing up. Like you know what your dad does for a living or you know about the tooth fairy. You don’t know the first moment you found out about it. You just know.
And I was eight or nine, back in the late 70’s when they turned up a bunch of footage of the concentration camps. And showed them on tv. My parents always wanted us to be exposed to it. Somehow I think they believed that if we knew how horrible the world could be and had been, we’d be protected from it. We knew all about the KKK, too, for that matter. They didn’t make us watch these documentary things, but they encouraged us to. One night, though, I couldn’t handle it. And I remember sitting in my parents bedroom with a radio on loud enough so that I couldn’t hear the tv in the living room, crocheting and trying not to cry too loud so my parents wouldn’t hear me being a baby.
Year before last I was assigned to read Peter Weis’ The Investigation for a documenatry drama class I was taking. I had to read it and give a report to the class. My report was that I couldn’t finish it. I couldn’t get through half of it.
If it makes you (me?) feel any better, I have the same troubles reading or seeing anything graphic about slavery, rape, etc.
But like I said, it is somehow all deeper when you know your ancestors were in those showers, those ovens, those train cars. It’s different when your family is so tiny because so many were murdered. It’s different when you know that it would have been you.
So while I was watching the docmentary I wondered if I could go to Auschwitz and walk through the ovens like the film maker couldn’t. Like my brother couldn’t.
I actually think I could. In fact, I think I want to. And I’m not sure what to think of that.
I’m not even going to open the can of worms that is lableled “What the hell do I think about the fact that the camps still exist much less in museum form.”
It’s late. I’m rambling. I’m much to deep right now.
