Memorial

This past Tuesday was Holocaust memorial day (Yom Hashoah). While I was growing up I went to a Jewish Day School that went really all out to commemorate the day. In theory I think this is a great thing and very important, but for some reason I was blessed with some sort of inherent trauma related to anything Holocaust. There's really no reason for it, my family left Europe after the Pogroms in the early 1900s. So while I'm sure I have lots of distant family who suffered through the Holocaust I've never had to deal with my grandparents being survivors. Every year, starting in about second grade, as soon Yom Hashoah came around I would be thrown into this state of panic/depression/ anxiety for months after what they exposed us to at school. It was really awful. I just couldn't handle listening to stories, seeing movies, reading books. I even considered transferring to public school for 11th grade so that I wouldn't have to take the semester long Holocaust class required.

Then in eighth grade we had to read Night by Elie Weisel (sorry about the spelling of his name, not sure if it's correct). I really panicked, cried, felt like I was going to throw up, etc. I even went to the guidance couselor. She helped a bit, mainly it felt good to be able to talk about it with someone. In the end I read the book. It wasn't fun, but I got through it, and in the end it helped me build up my skin a little bit (which in theory I don't think is necessarily a good thing either, do we want to build up an immunity to this kind of horror?). I also survived the 11th grade curriculum, which ended up being more historically based (how Hitler came to power, etc.).

While I made it through all of these things required of me I also recognized my limitations. I don't want to numb myself to the point where I don't feel anything for what happened, and for me there's no happy medium. As much as I feel the importance of hearing everything that happened, documenting it, educating about it, memorializing it. I'm not the one to do it. I felt very guilty about this for a long time. In the end I feel like the emotion that was built into me, for whatever reason, is my way of memorializing what happened. Some people can study it their whole lives, teach it, be activists, that's their role in memorializing this whole thing. For me, I just smell something that reminds me of the spring, the time when everything turns to Yom Hashoah, and everything comes flooding back. I have heard hundreds of stories about what happened, each more horrible than the next. These will last me for a long time, they are still very clear in my mind as much as I try to keep them tucked away.

Anyway, this whole long explanation is just to give background to why I observe Yom Hashoah the way I do now, which is by trying to ignore it. It may sound awful to some, but as I have explained above it's my way of moving on with life. I don't tell people not to deal with it, I just go about my way, quietly avoiding the things I know will traumatize me.

The one thing that is inescapable here is the siren. Every Yom Hashoah (and Israel's Memorial Day which is next week) there is a siren that sounds at 10 am for a minute or so. The incredible thing, is the entire country stops. When I was in school I had learned about it every year, seen movies of how it happens. It seemed pretty cool, but it didn't seem to be very emotional for me. Now that I live here, I must say it's not just cool, it's really incredible. Now that I live here, this country feels like any other country, people are assholes, people do whatever they want, there's crime. It's a country for god's sake. So now when I see what happens it really has an impact on me. This country is notorious for people not abiding by the rules, just because, egos abound. But when the siren sounds everyone stops, no one is too cool.

My new ritual is to walk out of my office to a little outlook across the street that overlooks the highway. The first time I did it I almost didn't believe I was going to see what I saw, the siren started and people froze. All the cars stopped, busses stopped, people got out and stood alongside their cars, pedestrians stopped. It floored me.

In a way, I think it's so powerful because it forces everyone to show their emotions in front of everyone else. No matter how tough someone is, they get out of their car and stand to honor the past.

I may not be watching all of the movies that are on TV on Yom Hashoah but I will definetly be walking outside to watch the entire country stop and honor what happened.