I was five when I first noticed the tattoo on Mr. Leo Neuhaus's arm. That was the day my mom sat me on the curb outside his grocery store and told me about the Holocaust. My mom was never one to sugarcoat the truth. If you were old enough to ask the question, you were old enough to hear the answer.
That day changed my life forever.
Far away in time and place and I was never to be the same.
Even now, I can only try to imagine what it must have been like for Mr. Neuhaus. No matter how much I know about the Holocaust, I'll never come close in my imagining to what the victims actually experienced. No amount of empathy will allow you to walk in a Holocaust survivor's shoes. If you weren't there, you can't imagine it. Not really.
He survived - but as my mother explained to me, surviving something like that carries with it its own demons. That Mr. and Mrs. Neuhaus would never be the same. You can escape from a place, but you can't escape your mind.
To know intimately the brutality of your fellow humans is to forever be changed by it.
She said that was a testimony to their strength. They survived. They kept going.
But she also said that they will forever be on the alert. Forever wary. Always on the watch.
A loss of belonging is a loss of self. It can shatter everything you believe. It can be crippling. It can cause you to live a life that never reaches the true fullness that should have been yours to live. Because there are those who seek to stop you from reaching that fullness. To strip you of your humanity.
It's the same with all survivors of the grave evil that people do.
We can only try to imagine their pain.
But try to imagine we must.
It should change us. It needs to change us. It has to change us.
Without that change, we doom ourselves.
We doom everyone.
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