Reading About the Holocaust

I am not sure when the story of the Holocaust became an important story in my life.  I remember in junior high, my social studies teacher commenting on how the Jewish families probably talked about news at the dinner table, instead of frivolous things.  I had to raise my hand.  My family watched the news at the dinner table, and talked about it.

This teacher said something to the effect of "Of course, your family would." She then went on to tell me and the class that my Polish grandparents had been in a citizenship class that she taught. My grandparents had immigrated to the United States in 1903, and eventually become US citizens. I did not appreciate that then as much as I do today! 

I remember one time asking my father why his parents came to America. I suspect it was about this same time in my life.  He said my grandparents saw how things were and did not want to be a part of it.  I was not quite sure what that meant, but I had an inkling it had to do with the persecution of the Jews and other politics. While that was occurring during the time my grandparents immigrated, it was well before the Holocaust.

When I was in high school, one of our parish priests had traveled to Europe, to the what was then called the Eastern Block Countries.  He went to one or more of the concentration camps, and brought back pictures and information which he shared with us.  You must remember in the 1960s, access to the Eastern Block Countries was limited, and the information about the Holocaust was also limited to what was available in West Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Bulgaria and Hungary, maybe Czechoslovakia.  My history is fuzzy, what other countries would have been free enough to provide information about the Holocaust. But much of the history of the Holocaust was behind "the Iron Curtain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Curtain."

This same parish priest was really into Ecumenism, and one of his efforts included having the Catholic Women's Council do a Seder Supper during Lent. I was able to attend, and learned a lot about Passover.  I was also reading Chaim Potok's http://potok.lasierra.edu/ books, as suggested by my home town librarian.

So, when I went away to college, the person who eventually became my best friend had the soundtrack to "Fiddler on the Roof."  Her uncle was involved with show business, and this play and promoted it.  It became a favorite, and the story became a favorite.  I know the songs, and much of the dialogue of the movie, by heart. And the heartbreak, and injustices.  

Well,  before and while I was doing my social work internship when I was a social work student at Our Lady of the Elms, I did a lot of reading about the Holocaust, fiction and non-fiction.   I read everything in the small Millers Falls library, which was limited, and then branched out to what was available in the area libraries, including Greenfield and Springfield. My internship supervisor, who worked at the Franklin County Community Action Center, and who had been involved in the Southern Freedom movement, turned me onto several books, and encouraged my interest in the subject.

It is a subject that I have never tired learning about.  Be it Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, or now, the story of The Countrymen, it is a topic that I find fascinating, heartbreaking, and sure that when I see modern genocide activities, reminds me we cannot stand by and do nothing.