I, jeremy ferrick, am a grandson of holocaust survivors. My grandmother sophie, who is here today, and grandfather max, who passed in 1980, survived the concentration camps, sailed to Israel, and than immigrated to the states in 1951. My grandmother, at 85 years old, is tenacious, strong willed, generous, and kind hearted. She wanted o instill in her grandchildren a passion for being jewish. For several years growing up she sent us every summer to camp alonim in the simi valley, where we met other young jews, learned Hebrew songs, and bonded with our jewish faith.
One particular summer while I was there, I was particularly interested in filmmaking and acting, and screenwriting. I had a chance to meet Stephen Spielberg, who showed up by the basketball courts where I was with some friends of mine. He was scouting scenery that he could use for his movie ‘jurassic park.’ He came over to us and shook our hands. I told him I had an idea for a movie about a young man in a concentration camp. He told me he was already working on a movie about the holocaust. That movie came out a few years later, and was called schindlers list. I’m sure most of you here have seen it. By the time I got to see it, I already felt like I was an expert on the holocaust. I had listened to my grandmother’s interview about surviving the camps which was made at ucla as part of a research study, I had read all the best books on the subject, including escape from sobibor, alissa appleman jurman’s autobiography, selected works of primo levi, viktor frankl, elie wiesel, and even poet/surivivor paul celan. I had seen countless Tv movies about it. I remember watching a particular film on tv about the holocaust when I was about 5, later finding out that my grandparents had survived the same horrible atrocities!
I remember the knowledge of the holocaust seeping out slowly in other waysthroughout my youth. Like when I was particularly distraught over some missing baseball cards and my mother let me know how petty I was being. “you think that’s hard? Try growing up with no aunts, uncles, cousins or grandparents because they were all murdered in the camps,” she said.of course She later became a therapist and apologized for saying that, realizing it had been a bit calloused.
How are we not to be a bit calloused knowing what our loved ones have gone through? And than going through, what I’m sure all of you out here have gone through, listening to holocaust deniers, like for instance the guy in my psychology class in junior college claiming to me in a conspiratorial manner that the holocaust never happened, not realizing that I am a direct result of it. i told him that it did happen. I told him what my grandparents went through, and hopefully it helped change his mind. But we are not here to evangelize to people who would rather close their ears to the truth. Let them rot in their ignorance. We know what happened. That people would want to disclaim what had happened to our brethren, to turn truth into a pack of lies, I did not know how to deal with that. Elie wiesel has a quote, it’s about dismissing evil with silence. But is silence enough?
We who are offspring of survivors are a different breed. We are a product of what happened. One way to look at it is that if it had never happened we wouldn’t be here. My mother wouldn’t be here. My aunt and her children wouldn’t be here( My grandfather had a whole other set of daughters and a wife who perished before he even met my grandmother.)
My grandfather max lazar of blessed memory passed when I was four years old. Whenever I come to an event like this I have about a dozen people tell me what a wonderful guy he was. Everybody would say he’s a real mensch, would never talk bad about anybody or anything, was a real socialite, etc. etc. But the story I remember most about him was that while in Auschwitz, he actually told a nazi guard that he would outlive the camps! That takes some bravery I would say. If only I had that much chutzpah! I have a feeling I would play it a bit safer than that!
When I decided to go to Europe 5 years ago, I called my grandmother and asked her if she wanted me to take any photographs of her hometown, lodz. I was going there anyways to take pictures for another family friend of ours who’s parents were also from lodz. She was not interested in reliving her memories, and I can’t say that I blame her.
Before going to lodz, I stopped in Krakow for about a week. In kazmierz, the jewish section of the city, there is a sign that tells people not to walk down a small stretch of sidewalk out of respect for the many people murdered in mass graves there. I wanted to scream at the poles who just ignored the sign. I talked to an Israeli man outside of a hotel on the same street. I asked him how he liked Krakow. He stated that he did not,that Poland felt like a massive jewish graveyard, and that he was only here to visit Auschwitz out of a sense of duty. I visited Auschwitz too. On an unconscious level, I also felt like it was my duty to see where my grandparents had suffered. At 26, I was already older than grandma had been. I always would think, what if I was in the same position. We can imagine it, but not completely.
The question I have now is. How do we acknowledge what happened to us in the past, and yet move into the future with optimism? We have plenty of anger and enough righteous injustice to last us for more than our lifetime. But how do we move on from there into emotions that are more productive?
I believe my grandmother has done a very good job despite what he has gone through and is a model of bravery. She has pushed on through her hardships, had two wonderful daughters who love her and they love each other very much, as well as half a dozen grandchildren and one great grandson. I believe she has taught me a lot about facing fear and a difficult past with dignity and pride.
We who are children and grandchildren of survivors, although we did not physically encounter the horror of the ghetto and the camps, are survivors as well. It is our duty to stretch ourselves in this life as much as possible. Because we are blessed by the fact that we are here. We are here and in hitler’s eyes we weren’t supposed to be. So we are given carte blanche to live our dreams, to follow our destinies as we see fit. And in doing so we rebel against the past. We dance on the face of the future for we are now stronger than ever. And we let the world know that what happened once will never happen again. Thank you.
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