To Remember the Sacrifices
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My dearest monogamous childhood +++ friend, G., is a child of Holocaust survivors. I spent much time in her childhood home. I remember her mother, wrapped in silence, standing at the sink, her back to us as we sat, quietly kibbitzing at the kitchen table.
Washing dishes, washing dishes. Standing in silence. Wrapped in silence. Washing dishes.
I remember. I remember that G. and I talked all the time, all the time, about everything, Everything, but not, BUT NOT about the war, her relative-free family, her parents’ unusual behaviors. We were forever-friends, bonded without words by the differences each of our parents stood within.
I remember her house, silent, seemingly hollow, upscale furniture, nice things, wrapped in heavy plastic covers, wrapped in silence, wrapped in hushed tones.
G. used to read this blog. I don’t believe she does now. I am still wrapped in silence; I don’t want to hurt her, to offend her, to say the wrong thing.
I’m hoping after hope that she won’t read this.
Of course, they didn’t talk. How could they talk? What was there to say?
Wrapped in silence. Wrapped in denial. The depth of unspeakable, unimaginable trauma.
Don’t say it. Spare the kinder, the children. Don’t feel it. Don’t go there.
And it stays. There. Constricted. Frozen in silence.
Speaking is the doorway.
Naming is the blessing.
Keeping alive the memories,
The direction home.
And I totally understand,
TOTALLY understand,
I’m tip-toeing around it now,
65 years later.
~~~
Ireichō
The Book of Names
“For the first time, an accurate and comprehensive list of every person of Japanese ancestry incarcerated in the World War II camps will be compiled in a book called the Ireichō.
The idea of a book as a monument is inspired by the Japanese tradition of Kakochō (literally, “The Book of the Past”), a book of names typically placed on a Buddhist temple altar and brought out for memorial services when the names of those to be remembered are chanted.
The Ireichō monument will be on display at the museum for a year. The public is invited to view and acknowledge the names in the Ireichō by placing a Japanese hanko (stamp) underneath the name of each individual in the book.
The seventy-five internment and concentration camps are represented by wooden plaques.
~~~
To remember.
To bear witness.
To memorialize.
We are here to witness each other.
Forgetting is not an option.
Memory must live onward.
~~~
Please look at this page, the words, the pictures. Please look at the faces:
~~~
The United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., committed to keeping alive the memories. As the survivors die, how essential, how imperative is their work.
Look at their articles, the video of the murder of lesbian and gay men during the war.
My experience in their Memorial Museum was life-altering.
~~~
And the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the Lynching Museum in Montgomery. Look at the pictures of their memorial, honoring, remembering, holding close all of the lynchings
~~~
How do we choose to remember?
To memorialize?
To hold close
The sacrifices made?
I don’t have answers.
I only have intentions.
Where does this all land,
Dear folks,
For you?
~~~
I have no words to complete this blog, to bring closure.. This song by Sweet Honey in the Rock says it all.
Ella’s Song comes from the actual words of civil rights activist Ella Baker. Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon turned Ella’s words into an a cappella piece for Sweet Honey in the Rock.
First, the lyrics:
We who believe in freedom cannot rest
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.
Until the killing of black men, black mothers’ sons
Is as important as the killing of white men, white mothers’ sons.
That which touches me most
Is that I had a chance to work with people
Passing on to others that which was passed on to me.
To me young people come first
They have the courage where we fail
And if I can but shed some light as they carry us through the gale.
The older I get the better I know that the secret of my going on
Is when the reins are in the hands of the young, who dare to run against the storm.
Not needing to clutch for power
Not needing the light just to shine on me
I need to be one in the number as we stand against tyranny.
Struggling myself don’t mean a whole lot, I’ve come to realize
That teaching others to stand up and fight is the only way my struggle survives
I’m a woman who speaks in a voice and I must be heard
At times I can be quite difficult, I’ll bow to no man’s word.
We who believe in freedom cannot rest
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.
~~~
May all beings be blessed,
May all benefit
From the work
We do
Together
And
Alone.
Thanks for your hearts,
Dear Friends,
Aruni
