Sunday, May 26, 2013

Connections Sunday, May 26, 2013

It is so heartwarming to send and receive mail when I am far from home, probably now more than ever before as I am traveling alone on a journey of discovery for my book about my grandparents' survival during the Holocaust.

For many years, my husband and I were thrilled with the opportunity to travel together and to visit many parts of Europe and Asia neither one of us had seen before. We were able to trade our apartment in New York city for others' in Denmark, Scotland, France, The Netherlands, Italy and  Spain but never in Germany because although I was safely born in the United States, my relatives were caught in Nazi times and I boycotted the country until 2006 when I met some wonderful folks who are keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive in Germany to ensure that atrocities like those never occur again.

So now I am ready to explore the route taken by my grandparents after they were deported from their beloved Frankfurt Germany to Poland and beyond. I will write my second book about their journey and about mine as I discover the sites they traversed, meet some of the people the encountered and recall the resilience and the fortitude they had to be able to withstand the harsh conditions they faced and arrive in the US after the war whole and ready to recompose their lives with their family.

I could never have done this journey without the daily presence of my son Steve who watches over my husband   at his memory care center. He sends me daily texts about the games they play with the ball, about the success he has looking through the Popular Science and Ranger Rick magazines and of course the walks they take around the home. When Steve writes "Bob is happy," I am too.

When the dozen or so folks on my email list respond to me, I feel connected and able to go on, reliving the ordeal my grandparents withstood, without getting lost in the difficulties and being able to concentrate on the connections that are so important in all our lives.

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