Tonight's speaker is Bernard Gotfryd, a survivor who went on to become a renowned photo journalist for Newsweek. He's also an accomplished author, writing his memoirs in the book "Anton the Dove Fancier." For our class tonight, we were given 3 chapters of the book to read. I read in guilt (ironically, one of the chapters was entitled "On Guilt") about the last time Gotfryd ever saw his mother, as my roommate watched 'So You Think You Can Dance" in the background. It was too much to bear - the juxtaposition of his heart-wrenching stories of his family ripping apart and my care-free, safe, Sunday night in front of the television. I put the computer down, and read the rest of the assigned reading this morning, in the comfort of my bedroom. But even still, I knew that in a matter of minutes, I would be taking a hot shower, putting on fresh, newly cleaned clothes, and heading to the kitchen to have my choice of cereal, fruit, oatmeal, eggs, or even ice cream for breakfast. Meanwhile, Gotfryd's mother was forced to feed their dining room table to the fire in their home in the ghetto, in order to have enough heat to make a bland potato stew.
One of the hardest things I'm finding as I embark on this journey is the difficulty in relating to Bernard's situation (or any of the 6-million + Holocaust victims) in the context of my life. Sure, I take a risk living in New York City, but the real fact is that nothing about my life - or the way I have ever lived - can compare to the experiences of those who suffered in the Holocaust. Because we don't live in the same day and time, and our worlds were/are so different, it makes it hard to comprehend, and it also makes it difficult to live the words of "Never Forget" - how can we forget something we ourselves have never experienced? How can we preach to never repeat atrocities that realistically are not going to happen to us, or other Jews in the world today, in our lifetimes?
Am I just being naiive?
Anyways, here's a little more on Bernard Gotfryd:
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