Via Metafilter, here’s a story from Daily Kos to bring tears to your eyes:
When I was 9, I caught my grandfather shaving in the bathroom and that is when I saw it: His Camp Number – 58877241.
Not knowing any better, I asked him why he got such a “stupid tattoo”. He told me that he really didn’t want to get it and quickly tried to cover it with a towel. I followed him asking him, “Why don’t you get it removed then?” He stop dead in the hallway and without turning around said “So I don’t forget.” We never discussed it again.
When he died last summer, I told myself that he was finally at peace. As I stood over his coffin with my wife, I reached down and took his arm in mine. I unbuttoned his sleeve and rolled it up. I looked at the number again – 58877241. My wife looked at me and asked “Why are you doing that?” All I could say was “So I don’t forget.” Right then I made my promise to him – Never again.
Moved? Of course you are. But there are lessons to be learned:
Now when I see the hate and bigotry that comes out of those that call them “Christians” or “Moral People”, I know that this is how it began seven decades ago in Europe. It was too late, when people finally woke up, millions had been carted away in cattle cars to their deaths.
I don’t want to see that here or anywhere else. I do not want there to be cattle cars filled with people that these hate mongers scream out against. I do not want to see gays, liberals, Mexicans, hippies, Hollywood Actors, or anyone else have to be tattooed with a number. No more 58877241s.
This summer, my family and I will be traveling to Auschwitz, so my children understand what there grandfather went through. I want my daughter to know why I see him in her eyes. And then everytime I look in her eyes I will see hope and love and not 58877241.
There’s a follow-up:
After writing my diary “A Promise to My Grandfather” yesterday, I received over 40 emails from all over the country (I am still getting some right now) from those that were also impacted by the Holocaust. I read each one of them and shed a tear for every word. Many thanked me for sharing the story of my grandfather, but I should thank all of them for their stories. It helped me see that I am not alone in my pain, but also to see that there is hope. Hope that there are those that want to fight the hate that is now forming and stop it before we repeat it.
I am not alone in my pain?
How to trivialise the holocaust in one easy lesson.
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