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SIX MILLION DROPS OF BLOOD Moshe-Shmuel Szklaniewicz Some 200 of my ancestors --
murdered by the Nazis. Two hundred drops of my blood spilled, one for each relative
slaughtered because he or she was Jewish. Six million drops of blood, one for each innocent
murdered in the Holocaust. Six million. Adolf Hitler. Nazi
Germany. We can’t forget.
When I think of the millions
killed, the six million drops become a river of blood that will flow through my
life. In a sense, I am living the lives my murdered relatives
never got to enjoy. They were deprived of their lives, but their blood is my blood. I went to Hebrew School to
learn the traditions of our people, to keep alive the beliefs that cost six
million their lives. We must never forget. The Holocaust is
fading from memory, and we must not allow this to happen. Six million
drops of blood. From the murdered, to my grandparents, my parents, to
me. And from me to my children, and their generations. Though we can never fully feel
the horrors of the Holocaust itself -- the concentration camps, the gas
chambers, the day to day life of death -- we can learn from those who were
there, murdered and survivors.
A Jewish proverb states
there’s a piece of every Jew’s soul inside of each of us. That’s how I
remember. I can’t begin to imagine what they lived through. Yet
they are all a part of me. I am each of them, just as each of them was a
part of me waiting to be born. That part of them could never die.
My children will be their children.
Sometimes I’m not grateful for
all I have. I get upset over little things. Then I realize that
I’m really lucky. I have a loving family, a roof over my head, friends,
food to eat, and most precious of all, life itself. In public school, we discussed
the horrors and tragedies of World War II. We talked about the irony
that there were white houses just down the road from the blackness of the
concentration camps. And the local citizens in their white houses
actually smelled the burning flesh, and they did nothing to stop the
Nazis. Nothing. Then I asked a question I knew could not be
answered. I asked, “Why?” I asked why would somebody do
that? I looked at my teacher, and she, a devout Catholic,
answered, “Nobody knows.” Maybe God knows. Or,
maybe even God is at a loss to answer my question. Maybe there is no
answer -- even from the Almighty. During my next class, as I was
walking alone, I started to cry. I wondered, would there ever be
another Holocaust? My answer was the long, empty sounds of the lonely
corridor echoing around me as I slowly headed back to class. Me, 200 murdered relatives and
six million drops of blood. I will remember. ©2001 Amanda Centor |