My Grandmother’s Holocaust Memoir Taught Me the Importance of Testimony
How every legacy is worth cherishing and recording
“We should hire a videographer!”
I coaxed my husband. I am persuading him to document his parents’ stories. His parents are 72 and 69. They grew up in post-war Seoul and immigrated to the US during the 1970s. Long before the streets of Gangnam district were associated with glitz and glamour.
Despite knowing that his parents grew up in post-war Korea, my husband knows little about their experience. They don’t talk about it. From his parents’ perspective, they had it easy. It was their parents and grandparents that had it difficult — the ones that actually survived Japanese-occupied Korea and the subsequent Korean War. To them, discussing post-war Korea would be unwarranted complaining.
My family archives
I was lucky to have known all four of my grandparents. Though between the ages of 17–23, three of them passed away. Over the course of my twenties, I realized I hardly knew their personal stories. I only learned about their childhoods second-hand from my parents.
I vowed not to make the same mistake with my remaining grandmother.
My grandma, a spry 87-year-old, lives in Miami Beach. She was born in Berlin in 1933, the year Hitler came to power. Her childhood is often depicted in WWII movies. In 1938, her Jewish family fled to Belgium after Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. When Germany invaded Belgium, her family fled to France in hopes of crossing the Pyrenees mountains into neutral Spain. But my grandma and her sisters were too young to cross; nobody would risk taking them through the treacherous pass.
Nazi police eventually came for her family and transported them to a holding camp. They awaited deportation to Auschwitz, a guaranteed death sentence for children. And then a miracle happened, a woman in the French resistance smuggled my grandma and her sisters out of the holding camp. The woman pretended they were Christian orphans and arranged a secret transport into neutral Switzerland.
Her parents (my great-grandparents) were eventually transported to Auschwitz and killed shortly after their arrival.
Recordings of my paternal grandparents’ stories
My grandmother’s story is recorded in a book titled, “Children Who Survived the Final Solution.” We also filmed her recounting her childhood for her 85th birthday.
When I spend time with my grandmother, she often tells me tales from WWII Europe. Most recently, she recalled how she ran home to tell her sisters that the war had ended. She was 12, elated at the naïve prospect that she would be reunited with her parents. Years went by before she eventually accepted their death.
I don’t recall hearing my grandfather’s story firsthand. He developed dementia when I was in middle school. He was born in Romania in 1929 and was shipped to Mauthausen, a concentration camp in Austria, at age 13.
Instead, my father tells my grandfather's stories, such as how he tightly held his sister’s hand when he arrived at Mauthausen. A Nazi soldier ordered them to separate and bashed their clasped hands with the butt of his rifle. That was the last time my grandfather saw his six-year-old sister.
Fortunately, my grandpa’s testimony is recorded in the USC Shoah Foundation Institute. Knowing that I can watch and share my paternal grandparents' stories with my children means the world to me.
The same cannot be said for my maternal grandparents
My maternal grandparents had normal childhoods, free from the despair that many experienced during WWII. Apparently, my grandfather pretended to be sick in order to avoid deploying overseas. He met my grandmother at the Red Cross, where he lied and told her he drove a red sports car.
Though less cinematic, I would love to have a firsthand account of their life. How did my grandfather become an architect? What was it like growing up in Mississippi in the 1930s and 40s? How did they decide to move to Atlanta?
But most importantly, I yearn to see their faces and hear their voices. I also want my future children to have a sense of connection to their lineage and heritage.
Time isn’t promised
Perhaps it’s because I’m recently married and have childbearing on my mind. I do the math and realize it’s unlikely my future children will have more than 15 years with my in-laws. As a kid or teenager, will they understand the importance of having meaningful conversations with their grandparents? I sure didn’t.
Recorded testimonies could be their only opportunity to hear their grandparents’ stories firsthand. In fact, my husband has hardly heard childhood stories from his parents. Post-war Seoul may not be interesting to my in-laws, but it’s fascinating to future generations. Every legacy is worth cherishing and recording.
I think it’s time to book that videographer.
