June 06, 2009
I’m putting the finishing touches on my presentation for the Prague Conference on Holocaust Era Assets. It promises to be a very exciting event and I hope that we will make more progress towards helping families who were victims of the Holocaust.
I’m apprehensive about signing the final declaration in Terezin. This is the site of a former Terezinstat Concentration Camp. It’s going to be very painful for me to remember what happened there and not have a complete breakdown.
I cried for almost two hours after I visited the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam. I never expected to have such an emotional reaction to seeing her house, but read the book as a child and felt like I could really identify with her. While walking on the same floors that Anne walked on, an overwhelming sense of sadness overtook me. I had to flee the house and try to gain my composure while strolling along the quaint Dutch canals. It took me the rest of the day to finally feel like I could be a tourist again.
This is why I’m worried about visiting Terezin. I really don’t know what kind of emotions will overtake me. I understand the historical significance of the location, but the weight of the horrors that occurred will leave me with a heavy heart and it will difficult to concentrate on the matters at hand.
There will be some survivors who will be attending the conference and making the trek out to Terezin. Of course I think that if they can do this, I should be able to do this. Why am I being such a wimp about this?
I’m two generations away from the atrocities of the Holocaust, but it’s still very painful to think of all the relatives I lost to Hitler. My grandmother used to tell me ‘Hitler murdered them.’ I couldn’t fully comprehend what she was saying when I was a child, but I now understand that she wanted this message to stay with me.
When helping families to find precious items that were looted from them during the Nazi regime, I learned to develop a thick skin. Their stories of escape and survival are all unique and fascinating. If I took everything to heart, I wouldn’t be able to do this job. I remember explaining to a colleague that during ‘Jew Auctions’ in Austria, Nazi officials would sell off the contents of wealthy families houses. They would start with expensive artworks and furniture, and work their way down to underwear and eyeglasses. He turned green while I explained this to him, and I realized that I’ve dealt with this for so long, that I put the terrible plight of the families to the back of my mind. If I didn’t do this, I wouldn’t be able to cope with all the horrors that they had to endure.
Instead I concentrate on retribution. I’m hoping that by helping families get back part of what they lost that somehow I can right some of the wrongs that occurred in the past. Most of my accomplishments seem small, but I hope they add up to something significant. Progress can be slow, but conferences like this are important because they remind us of how important it is not to forget.
Don’t be afraid to show emotion. Especially there. Welcome it. Nothing is more important than the matter of remembering those lost souls.