![]() I have read Holocaust histories and I have read biographies. ![]() Rabbi Hirschprung wrote about daily experiences. He was never in a camp – but was always on the run. He was a survivor from Poland who wrote a memoir right after the war based on his daily diary of years of suffering until he reached safe harbor in Kobe, Japan. I recently read the book, “Vale of Tears” by Rabbi Pinchas Hirschprung. I have read hundreds of survivor testimonies. I am the child of Holocaust survivors, I have seen the documentaries and films. I say that for me it is incomprehensible. It is incomprehensible to imagine what millions of people went through during the war. But once this is acknowledged – the question remains how does one bear the enormity of grief for a lifetime? How does one bear grief for 73 years? It is important to acknowledge that as human beings, survivors bear their grief differently. While Lucy can look forward to the healthy process of resolved grief, many Holocaust survivors are doomed to unresolved grief where the pain may be hidden but never disappears, burdened by deeply felt fears that the new life could also be lost.įor Holocaust survivors, who lost almost everyone in their families and their communities, who lost their homes, who lost all humanity, and almost lost their lives there is only unresolved grief. The love for a new family, cherished as part of a new life, and the grief for the loved ones lost – a grief so heavy that one shivers and moans under the weight of it. It never occurred to me that you could love someone the same way after he was gone, that I would continue to feel such love and gratitude alongside the terrible sorrow, the grief so heavy that at times I shiver and moan under the weight of it.”Īs the child of Holocaust survivors, it struck me with great intensity that these words could be the words of a survivor who carries this dichotomy of feelings for a lifetime. She wrote “I expected to feel only empty and heartbroken after Paul died. The book is very moving but what grabbed my gut were the words of Lucy, Paul’s wife who wrote the epilogue. As he wrote – “I had reached the mountaintop I could see the Promised Land.” Sadly, he was not to enter. Paul was in the last year of his residency proving himself to be an extraordinary neurosurgeon and researcher. He wanted to write about facing his illness and facing death as an expression of his openness to a full life. Paul Kalanithi’s autobiography “When Breath Becomes Air” documents his life after being diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. Photo courtesy of Bea Hollander-Goldfein.
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