Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, or Yom Ha'sho'a.
Last year, I was of course in Israel. I was there for the siren, the two minutes of statewide silence. It's jarring, really. There was an entire performance, with sad songs and everything. We all had to wear white shirts that day. It was...well, it made an impact. It's impossible to imagine the individual people, so all we can think of is the numbers. Numbers crawling barefoot through the snow, silent in the forests, praying before a fatal shot. The blood of numbers staining the soil. Even the faces are impossible to find. They are only numbers now.
Today is also my great-grandmother Gertrude's birthday. She was killed at Auschwitz. I have seen only one picture of her, and I'm fairly sure it's the only one that still exists. She is smiling in the photograph, and I can see hints of my mother in her. What really saddens me, though, is that the only part of her I know is the fact that she was killed. I remember once sitting at a café and my mother telling me about the Nazis for the first time, and how they killed people, like my grandmother, in machines. She told me about Anne Frank, pointing to a house across the street with an attic window, and saying that Anne Frank lived there for a long time, being very, very quiet. I did not understand, really. I remember also seeing the one picture of Gertrude and asking who she was. My mother said she was her grandmother, and that she never met her.
That is all I know. I will never hear stories about her laugh, or about her cooking, or about her dislike of receiving gifts. I will never know whether she was a reader, or an artist, or if she liked music or dance. I will never know if she's anything like me. What was she like when she was young? How did she live?
Today is the first time I ever imagined her death. It never struck me before. How did she die? Was she shot or sent to the gas chambers? It's a twisted thought, but what else could I know? Did she cry? Did she give up hope? Did she pray?
Does she hear me wonder?
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