#YomHaShoah

We need to stay here, proud of what we are. Proud of our heritage, of our shortcomings and our heroes. Grateful for those who were before us and kept being what they were for us. Proud of our learning, of our mistakes, of our stories, of our food, of our brothers and sisters from all over the world. 

Sometimes, we don´t give up because we feel obliged to pass the heritage to our children. From the deepest seas of denial and self-hate, we remember and with a last breath we hurry up to teach to our children to be better than us. To be strong enough to defend who they are. To move on. To learn to self-defend. To learn to ignore the haters and the anti-semites. To not forget those who want to kill us. And be proud, again, for what we are.

We remember not because we want to sink into the drama and see no future. We remember exactly because we can see how far we are: as a people, as a country, as individuals, despite all the trauma we were given by birth and we sent it further to our children.

Proud yet careful. Life is such a precious gift and we shall use this gift to bring kindness and humility and love to our fellow Jews. By respecting the differences among us, the different levels of observance, accepting that some of us decided to live their life differently than ours. By respecting any human being, regardless the social status, religious or upbringing, by rejecting discrimination of any kind, by sharing our kindness to those in need no matter what. 

Yom HaShoah is taking place this year in strange times. Many Shoah survivors were among the victims of the terrible pandemic and died alone. And there are already so few left. It is time to feel more responsible for one another. Try to help those in need, bring food to our elders, connect with them, show them they are not alone, listen to their stories and share it further. Ask your friends or your community or your synagogue who needs help, how you can help. 

And don´t forget to be kind. It is so much hate and slander and intolerance in this world that can be countered only through gratitude and small acts of kindness. Stop judging the other, ask what you can do to help or at least try to understand why some are different. 

´The highest form of wisdom is kindness´. 

We're Still Here

The members of the Jewish families that survived the Shoah do have many secrets to share and to be revealed. Some were hidden for ever in the overwhelming sadness of the survivors that left behind with the murdered loved ones a part of their emotions, hearts and understanding.

Tracing back those secrets, recreating the histories that really made history is becoming harder and harder as the number of those who survived is constantly decreasing. 

Esther Safran Foer is one of those 'gatekeepers of the past'. In I Want to Know We're Still Here she is recreating her family history, through travel, intensive research in the archives, oral testimonies and, when necessary, detective work too. The journey tracing her family history back in the Ukraininan shtetl of Trochenbrod was earlier started by one of her famous sons, Jonathan that ended up writing a work of fiction - Everything is Illuminated - turned later into a movie. But Esther Safran Foer has a list of names, pictures and the desire to discover more about the family her father had during the war. His first wife and daughter were murdered and Esther is intensively researching - through interviews and research done in USA, Israel and Ukraine - those particular destinies. 

We say that someone really dies when there is no one to remember him or her. When there is no one to be given his or her name. This is why in the Askenazi - European Jewish - tradition, we give to a child the name of a dead relative. Thus, the name and the spirit of the deceased stays alive. But what happened when there is no trace of your name left?

Esther Safran Foer succeeds in her treasure hunt discovering her lost relatives. Their names are kept alive through her grandchildren. We're still here.

This relevant post-Holocaust memoir is important for the state-of the art of the genealogical researches and research of personal Jewish narratives. It reveals the ways in which the information from human sources and archives can be used, as well as the new connections made possible by DNA tests and use of online databases. It offers an example of how to proceed to post-Holocaust research, navigating through a sea of information in the absence of direct human sources. 

I personally loved the simple realistic style. It allows the memories to take shape in a photographic way. More than once, one can easily see the short movie of specific events or contexts. 

I Want to Know We're Still Here has a unique voice. Similarly with the memories from different corners of the world Esther Safran Foer collects in ziplock bags - earth, stones etc - it is a fragment of life. Life that once was before it become history. But as long as we're still here, it is a history whose memory will not be forgotten. 

Disclaimer: ARC offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review 

In another time and space 'A Man Lies Dreaming'...

This is a very challenging book, unique for its approach and creativity. Every successful book should be unique for...but, some topics are much harder to be creative with than the others. 

In 'A Man Lies Dreaming', Shomer (watcher, in Hebrew) an inmate of Auschwitz is re-creating a world where the cursed German dictator is just a refugee turning into a refugee, in an England openly unfriendly towards the difference - actually this last part is not a fictional projection. 

The time of the story alternates from the adventures of detective 'Wolf' aka Adolf, hired to find the whereabouts of a Jewish girl mysteriously missing on her way from the - communist - Germany to the free England. In the good tradition of the shund - the Yiddish version of pulp noir openly despised by Sholem Aleihem who criticized the popular author Shomer for his un-literary and bad taste writings - there are a lot of sexual encounters and misadventures. During the story, 'Wolf' is having his own private 'bris' and will emigrate to Palestine with Exodus, while 'In another time and space' Shomer lies either 'dreaming' or 'sleeping'.

The entire story - with its many stories and references, from the top members of the Nazi establishment to various literary references, more or less familiar - with its absurd episodes and hard-core moments its a run against the clock for survival. This is how Shomer, who lost his children and wife at Auschwitz is able to survive the daily nightmare, so well that it will simply disappear, becoming maybe himself one of the characters of his own stories. Or this is the hope that he did so. 

In a very gentle way, this book is a praise to the world of imagination and the work of spirit, which sometimes can won even in the most disgraced places. It is not guaranteed but at least it is worth a try. It makes life more bearable, whatever the circumstances.