Remembrance of things past. With the tsunami of antisemitism ricocheting around the world, once again we’re fighting for our survival. This is why we need to bridge the generations and remember the Holocaust. To honour the memory of millions of Jews whose lives were cruelly eviscerated before they reached their allocated potential, when within just 5 years, a civilisation was virtually eradicated. We must remember those we lost during the Holocaust, continuing to hold their memories close to our hearts.

Few of that generation survived. Emotionally bereft, half-dead skeletons, orphans who crawled out of concentration camps with only their names and tattooed numbers, survivors of death marches and slave labour ghettoes.

I’m the proud daughter of a Holocaust survivor. My beautiful mother, Henny Kagan Hitner. And I’m part of a select group: the children of Holocaust survivors; those of us who grew up absorbing the ramifications of our parents’ tragedies. This is not a group I would’ve chosen for the purpose of exchanging sparkling wit or dazzling repartee. But it was such an unusual upbringing; its epigenetic trauma residing deep within us, as it continues to dominate various aspects of our adult lives.

Our group swaps distressing stories of fractured childhoods, absent relatives, and broken parents. Some of us grew up in homes with dark corners of secrets. Ghostly shadows of murdered relatives, lurking within the recessed memories of our family history. We knew that something terrible had transpired in the lives of our parents. Yet we couldn’t articulate what was awry in their behaviour. We felt their sadness seeping through their days, as we watched them with........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)