Holocaust Remembrance means Bridging the Generations |
Remembrance of things past. With the tsunami of antisemitism ricocheting around the world, once again we’re fighting for our survival. This is why we need to bridge the generations and remember the Holocaust. To honour the memory of millions of Jews whose lives were cruelly eviscerated before they reached their allocated potential, when within just 5 years, a civilisation was virtually eradicated. We must remember those we lost during the Holocaust, continuing to hold their memories close to our hearts.
Few of that generation survived. Emotionally bereft, half-dead skeletons, orphans who crawled out of concentration camps with only their names and tattooed numbers, survivors of death marches and slave labour ghettoes.
I’m the proud daughter of a Holocaust survivor. My beautiful mother, Henny Kagan Hitner. And I’m part of a select group: the children of Holocaust survivors; those of us who grew up absorbing the ramifications of our parents’ tragedies. This is not a group I would’ve chosen for the purpose of exchanging sparkling wit or dazzling repartee. But it was such an unusual upbringing; its epigenetic trauma residing deep within us, as it continues to dominate various aspects of our adult lives.
Our group swaps distressing stories of fractured childhoods, absent relatives, and broken parents. Some of us grew up in homes with dark corners of secrets. Ghostly shadows of murdered relatives, lurking within the recessed memories of our family history. We knew that something terrible had transpired in the lives of our parents. Yet we couldn’t articulate what was awry in their behaviour. We felt their sadness seeping through their days, as we watched them with childlike eyes, not yet old enough to understand the depths of their despair.
Some of them were able to speak. Some were so traumatized, they were paralysed into silence. Some carried the brutality of their childhoods across the threshold of their doors. With Empty eyes. Bleak souls. Shattered hearts. Some sank into a blank landscape of deep depression; emotionally ill-equipped to protect their children from growing into fearful, psychologically damaged adults.
I was lucky to have my mother, who refused to be a victim of her traumatic background, and lived a life of grace and dignity.
We children of Holocaust survivors are quite a select group. We discuss our inconsolable inheritance. We share our histories, recognising we all carry residual anguish of our families. Our travel talks cover signposts with names of hell. Maps of killing grounds, mulched with the ashes and bones of our Jewish families: Auschwitz. Belsen. Buchenwald. Dacau. Mauthausen. Ravensbrück. Sobibor. Stutthof. Theresienstadt. Treblinka.
In today’s Australia, there are some circles where Jewish identity is being diminished. Yet, after 3,500 years, the Jewish tradition to survive with hope is both particular and universal. My mother told me that even when imprisoned in the hell of Stutthof concentration camp, where prisoners were shot if they spoke in front of the Nazi guards, they’d whisper “Jehudi” (“Jew?”). To connect with other Jews. To remember their identity. To remember those whose names were stripped. In the camp, they were simply numbers that were tattooed onto their arms. That’s why our group has a shared imperative to remember how the Holocaust started with words; and we know how it ended. We’ve imbibed the knowledge that ordinary people evolve into murderous killers, if there aren’t enough restrictions and accountable laws placed upon them.
As Jewish hatred has become mainstream in Australia since October 7, we understand that this is a frightening portent of what could lie ahead. We keep repeating “Never again” but this hollow phrase does not resonate in the swampy abyss of endless antisemitism. We hear the invader barbarians who are marching in our streets, screaming for our demise. Not so different to the sound of jackboots, tramping through the byways of Alt Europa some 80 years ago. Instead of wearing Nazi insignia, these fanatical nihilists carry HAMAS flags, wearing t-shirts with ISIS motifs. We watch with mounting horror as the age-old scourge of racial hatred is upon us. Again. Recognising these complicated and irreconcilable forces that are determined to punish us. Because we’re Jewish.
It’s sickening that hatred for Jews has triumphantly emerged from the slimy rocks where it had been festering, displaying Islamic victimhood and lies, aided and ignored by a weak government. A government which unfortunately, over the past few years, has betrayed us. They’ve introduced Gazan Hamas supporters into this society, building on our ancient fears of being hunted by our fellow Australian citizens, and despite mouthing dull platitudes abut there not being place for antisemitism in Australia, our erstwhile leaders are shtum about prosecuting those foreigners who disrespect their new host country,
My aunt Risa Kagan Silbert, aged 96, is the oldest living Holocaust survivor in WA. How many times in one lifetime must she hear cries of “Kill the Jews”? In Australia?
Our challenge is to bridge the generations, reminding contemporary Jews that we’re living in a dangerous and provocative moment. We’ve become the truth-tellers. Those of us who bear witness on behalf of our families whose voices are now silent. Their crime? They were born Jewish. These tortured, defenceless, inspirational people who became our parents. We’ve inherited the Jewish identity that they gave us. The intense will to live that forced them to survive! My darling mother would warn us that antisemitism is always hiding. She’d say “EHR KUMT.” (It is coming.) Now she would say “EHR IST DOH.” (It is here.)
This is our mission. We’re resilient, believing that everyone is capable of creating a better world. Optimistic to try reconciling an impossible past with a positive future. We pledge to keep reiterating the terrible truth now so evident. Shades of the Holocaust keep intruding and recurring in our current experience. We recently suffered the slaughter of our Jewish brothers and sisters on Bondi Beach. Murdered in plain sight by Muslim terrorists. So now we cannot ignore the warning signs, or we do so at our peril. This government should heed the lessons of the Holocaust and embrace the need to be on the right side of history.
Now we’re being heard. Now we must name and shame those who wish to deny us. Now we hold them accountable! We refuse to be ignored. We refuse to be marginalized. We demand a secure future. And we hope for a peaceful Australia. For all our children and grandchildren.
Illana Hitner Klevansky is a freelance writer, author of “The Kugel Book”, living in Perth, Western Australia