The day my mother refused to get off my back
A tattoo is permanent, meaningful tribune to something in many different cultures. The actual word tattoo (or tatau) in Samoan actually means balanced, fitting, and appropriate. The symbols and meanings of each tattoo signify important milestones or characteristics of each person. For this exact meaning, millions of people across the world get tattoos both for cultural reasons, or for their own personal enjoyment. But this was not always the case or the utility of a tattoo, and the gruesome memory that tattoos play for many surivors of the Holocaust is not one of fitting or appropriate nature. When I got my first tattoo on my back to signify my own strength and battle, I was filled with pride and it made me feel that much more confident with myself specifically because of the meaning it captured. That is until my mother saw the tattoo, and that was the day my mother refused to get off my back.
My mother grew up in Wisconsin, with two sisters, a dad that had grown up in the United States during World War II, and a mother that had fled Austria to escape the Nazis. Growing up more than 50 years later, I distinctly remember the impact that my grandmother’s childhood had left on her. She rarely spoke German, although she understood plenty of it, and refused to travel to that part of Europe every again. Following the Nazi Germany invasion of Austria in 1938, my grandmother fled from her home in Austria across Europe, and after many traumatic years of fleeing from Nazis taking over more and more of Europe, made her way to the United States. Her family was separated, traumatized, and never fully reconnected. The Holocaust is a nightmare that forever leaves a mark on my family as the brutal and savage memories of what happened to much of my family is not easily forgotten. One horrifying detail of the Holocaust that was a reminder for many survivors was the tattooed serial numbers that concentration camp prisoners were issued.
World War II had plenty of gruesome events that scarred my grandmother for the rest of her life, but my grandfather had his fair share of negative effects from the war. As a citizen living in the United States, my grandfather and his family felt the impact that fighting a war, and especially a world war, has on a country. Rationing and preserving things “for the troops” was a common phenomenon in many American homes. But the real people benefitting from these sacrifices made by every day citizens were not so much the soldiers fighting across seas, but rather the big companies producing necessities for wartime. Naomi Klein’s podcast: How power profits from disaster, although primarily about corporations benefitting from after a distaster, hits on many similar points of what happens during wartime and how many companies benefit so greatly from producing things for this time. Even after war, which in essentially every case can be considered a disaster, is profitable for many businesses as rebuilding and helping communities start over makes a lot of money if you’re in the right line of business. My grandfather, being a literature student and later a librarian, was very interested in the news and followed details about what company was doing what and where their money was coming from. This, because it was what he could see firsthand about the war, was sickening and sad to him because he knew that while many of those corporations and CEOs were making loads of money, thousands of soldiers and civilians in the center of the war were losing their lives for the corporations to even have that money to begin with.
Tattoos were never a subject I had a chance to discuss with my grandmother before she passed away, but from the way my mother feels about them I can only imagine. There is no way that I can fathom the kind of feeling my grandmother had towards these serial number tattoos (although she personally did not have one herself), but I understand that hatred and negative connotation that comes along with seeing them. The day my mother accidentally saw my back tattoo, she was horrified. Here was her daughter, who knew so much about the history of our family, with something that was so blatantly horrifying to so many members of my family. It took me months to get my mother to understand why and what the meaning of my tattoo was. I am fully aware of the burden it carries for my family, but I got a tattoo (and the lotus flower in specific) to signify my own battle and confrontation with sexual assault and that by acknowledging it happened and moving forward with it, I felt as if I was purifiying myself, which in many cultures is the significance of a lotus blossom. My mom still does not approve of this tattoo or any other, and she likely never will, and because of this, she can never “get off my back” or the notion of what is on it. But the history of my family, no matter how brutal and catastopic, will always be important and meaningful to me, despite if I turn the significane of a tattoo into something strengthening instead of detrimental for me.
