Remembering Well

I wrote this at midnight last week when I couldn't sleep after visiting a Holocaust exhibit.

November 9, 2010

Today, of all days, I broke a glass. Before fate or fortune could stop it, it had slipped from my fingers and scattered into hundreds of pieces, escaping even into the tiniest crevices of my kitchen walls. Of course I retaliated with the broom and dustbin, but there was that one shard, astoundingly wedged between floor and the cupboards of my new home. The broom wasn’t enough, so I had to use my very fingers to pry it loose. With a violent tug, the sparkling glass came out, but not before it had extracted the tiniest trickle of blood from my index finger, the price of its sacrifice.

Today, of all days, I met you. I believed I was heightening my intellectuality by attending my first German lecture. Proudly was I ready to cast my critical eye over the newest museum display and talk mightily with my fellow colleagues about our superiority of compassion over people of the past. But I had barely made it past the door when you greeted me, standing there in your button-down wool coat, carpet slung over one arm and tote bag firmly clutched in the other. You stood in the middle of the lively crowd, and your thoughts were a hundred miles away. No one was looking at you. Everyone was too busy staring at the guard who had just barely forced himself into the edge of the frame, finger outstretched, tonsils glaring at me from his open throat. Your father was scowling at him, your mother hanging on to his arm fearfully, her own bag pressed against her chest. Kids who should have been in school were congested up almost to your legs, and neighbors hung with their big bosoms over their balcony rails to watch the spectacle. You just stood there in front of the transport truck, obviously unfazed, your smooth facial features emotionless and your lips pursed in a straight line. Yet the injustice of what was happening simmered beneath the surface. You could feel it in the pulse of your fingertips, and your eyes were fiery as you stared off into a distant land where no price was demanded of your blood.

Today, of all days, I walked the same streets you once called home. The glass has been cleaned up along with your carpet and other possessions that were pried from your fingers seventy-two Novembers ago. Then, the people praised themselves for their purity and rational-mindedness; now, we praise ourselves for our empathy and open-heartedness. Yet how does any of it compare to the simplicity of a young girl whose life splintered into thousands of shards in the blink of an eye? Who was asked to pay an ultimate price? And only one forgotten photographer noticed as she boarded that transport truck and slipped into oblivion.

Today, of all days, I will remember your scar as I finger my own.