I and many others are part of a fortunate outcome of an unfortunate and unforgivable past. I and many others are the children and the future of those people that survived the Holocaust. The human beings that suffered and survived these agonizing episodes of forced separation from family, relocation to concentration camps, torture, sexual abuse, starvation, Nazi death squads, and inhumane so-called medical experiments were our parents. This sad history is what bonds us... the children to each other.
While growing up, there existed many questions that were never answered or discussed until years down the road. As a child, I always wondered why I was an only child or why so many members of the family never have any kids. I still don't know the answer for sure, but I believe it was due to the fear of bringing children into a world that has the potential to seek them out for the sole reason of destroying them as was done to their parents.
As a child, I can remember asking questions that today seem ridiculous. "Was Hitler really that bad?" The obvious answer given was "yes!", but with no explanation. Nothing would be discussed because of the pain that could help me pull together the history of what happened to my folks.
Years later, I finally went after those answers by joining "The Second Generation of Holocaust Survivors." After meeting those with a similar background, I decided to take the next step and set off to Germany to trace my mother's footsteps from 1933-1945. In preparation for the journey ahead, I was in need of information regarding the facts, places and times. My mother did open up, but not without much internal agony and sleepless nights.
I visited every location from the bullet-riddled synagogue where my mother's family attended services to the Jewish school in East Berlin where Jewish children had to attend so they wouldn't mix with others. Then I visited the Jewish Cemetery behind the school where my mom played tag with her schoolmates. Soon that ended. This location became a transport station for those being relocated to Auschwitz. I even found the old brick factory where the Tietgen family risked their lives to hide my mom and my grandparents for two years under liberation by the Russians.
There is much more to this story, much ugliness and much sadness, but of course, there is an outcome that obviously is bittersweet. The family that saved us did not survive, but we have. How ironic. My mother made sure the Tietgen Family would never be forgotten. She had their name enshrined on a wall commemorating them in "Yad Vashem" - the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem.
If there is something positive for me to take from this evil past, it is that it gives me strength and backbone to try to help others in need as the Tietgen Family did and countless others did for so many. Without risk, nothing great is achieved.
