Rose Berenbaum and the Holocaust

It is strangely odd I found myself arguing with a man of Middle Eastern descent on a message board just the other day over the Holocaust.  He claimed the Holocaust was a false story and never happened.  He boasted that the story was a tool by the Jews to garner sympathy and shed a bad light on Germany and the Middle East. He said that Jews were out to destroy the world and that the Holocaust never occurred. 

My mind went numb and I stuttered aloud when I read his words across the message board.  The Holocaust is a subject I know well and it is a piece of history I’ve studied in details since I was in Junior High School.  Come on buddy I said to myself – I’m so ready for your ignorance.  Mr. Achmed (my given name to this idiot) found someone that could stand toe to toe with him on his fallacies and lies.

 Let’s start out with the Wikipedia definition below folks:

The Holocaust, is the term generally used to describe the killing of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, as part of a program of deliberate extermination planned and executed by the National Socialist regime in Germany led by Adolf Hitler. Other groups were persecuted and killed by the regime, including the Roma, Soviets (particularly prisoners of war); ethnic Poles; other Slavic people; the physically or mentally disabled; gay men; religious dissidents such as Jehovah's witnesses, and political dissidents.  Many scholars do not include these groups in the definition of the Holocaust, defining it as the genocide of the Jews, or what the Nazis called the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." Taking into account all the victims of Nazi persecution, the death toll rises considerably: estimates generally place the total number of victims at nine to 11 million.

Did that get your attention?  NINE TO ELEVEN MILLION people were murdered because Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany thought they were repugnant.  Oh it happened, and now many in society are trying to say it was a big lie and a propaganda tool of Semitic sympathizers.  If I had lived in Nazi Germany and lived an openly GAY LIFESTYLE – I would have been included in that NINE TO ELEVEN MILLION people that are now gone………………..erased………………..wiped off this earth by pure hatred.  Do you realize entire nations, families, generations of families and their way of live obliterated – gone – puff disappeared forever?

So I responded to this idiot over the internet – me sitting in my cozy home in the U.S. and him most likely blogging from the Middle East.  I advised him he needed to go back and read history and look at the thousands of pictures of the dead all lined up in chalk covered mass graves and think again.  He argued and stammered with me that it was a lie – basing his reasons on heresy and more lies.

I explained to him I’ve seen and interviewed a SURVIVOR of the concentration camps, I heard her stories and saw the number tattoos on her forearm.  Mr. Achmed it was no lie.  Mr. Achmed it happened and Mr. Achmed you are full of crap.  I realize it was a conversation I’ll never win – but I found it necessary to stand up to this anti-semitic and hateful man. 

As I went round and round with Mr. Achmed in this pointless argument, I thought about Rose Berenbaum.  Rose Berenbaum was a survivor of Ravensbruck – a concentration camp in northern Germany.  She was a guest speaker at a conference I was assigned to cover one spring day almost 20-years ago.  She was a small framed woman and when I met her she was in her mid 70’s. As I introduced myself to her, she gripped my hand and held it tightly with both of her hands.  As I sat down and listened to her story I studied her weathered and fair face.  I quickly became aware that I was sitting next to a heroine and a heroic survivor.  She should have never lived through that nightmare I kept thinking to myself as I listened to her story and took notes.  She told me the story of her family being uprooted and separated from her father and brother – she and her sister marched with their mother to one location after another and finally to Ravensbruck.  After 14 months both her mother and sister had died and she was alone and almost dead when the troops liberated Ravensbruck.

As her she neared the end of her story she rolled up her long sleeve shirt and exposed seven rudimentary and small black numbers that had been tattooed on her forearm.  As she held up that frail arm towards me I could see a lifetime of suffering inside her brown eyes. I could feel her pain, her rugged spirit and her will to survive. She had survived Ravensbruck.  Rose looked at me in a defiant pose and said,  “The Germans branded me a prisoner, branded my skin because of my faith and told me I would die a prisoner.  This tattoo is proof that no ink, no mark and no amount of hatred can overcome the will to survive.  I survived and this tattoo is that brand to remind me that I am here for a reason and I prevailed over hatred."

I gave Rose a hug before I left – in my lifetime I will never meet another fearless and brave woman like that wonderful and grand survivor. I’ll never let her story die and I’ll never forget her and the images she made on my young mind. 

As my argument with Achmed ended and he disappeared in the internet black hole – I thought it was the least I could do to stand up for Rose and of the Holocaust she endured and survived through.  May we never let the Holocaust be forgotten or the likes of Achmed will try to convince the world that the Holocaust never happened.  Rose Berenbaum what a mighty warrior you were………..

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
George Santayana

Simon to Simon

The moment had all but faded into my frontal lobe membranes. It didn't occur to me that I had met Paul Simon, (for those of you too young to know a great musician from the 60's and 70's - Paul Simon was the other half of Simon and Garfunkel and one of the greatest songwriters and singers of our time) until I was listening to "The Sound of Silence."

It was several summers ago and I was dating a girl that lived in Deep Ellum in Dallas. As I was driving around and around Deep Ellum trying to find a parking space, I noticed a shiny and black Porshe parking in front of me. As I sat waiting, I noticed this guy had a man holding a parking space for him. I was distracted and fiddled with my radio. I looked up again and a man of short stature and jet black eyes and hair was walking in front of my Jeep. I stared at him because I found his face familiar. Oddly familiar. He motioned for me to go around him and I obeyed, driving by him slowly - I was still trying to determine how I knew this guy.

I parked the Jeep and walked across the street to Club Dada. The Dallas club icon was vibrant with laughter and music. Edie Brickell was on stage and the place was alive with sounds of her soulful voice. I met my date at the bar and she introduced me to several of her friends. After some small talk and ordering drinks we shuffled our way to the back of the crowded outside stage. After weaving my way past throngs of people and barely able to see two people in front of me, we found a high perch next to the sound mixer booth. I looked straight-ahead and watched Edie Bricknell do her weird and funky sing-dance vibe with the mike attached to her lips.

A throng of people walked past me and knocked me into a fellow standing next to me. Before this incident, I hadn't noticed anyone standing next to me. I weaved into his shoulder and looked sideways to apologize for invading his space. Two inches from my face was Paul Simon. It dawned on me then that it was Paul Simon I saw in the parking lot. It was Paul Simon standing inches from me listening to his girlfriend Edie Brickell sing. I put on my calm face and apologized for almost knocking him over. He grinned at me and said it was no problem, that he was used to big music crowds. I found that funny, because I knew who he was and imagined he had stories upon stories to tell about the crowds that come to see him sing.

He saw me giggle and asked me if I liked the concert. I told him I had loved Edie Brickell since college and that she was one of my favorites. Before I thought about it, I blurted, "I think we have something in common, my last name is Simon do you think we are relatives?" He stood back to stare at my features and grinned somewhat amused, "Simon huh? He asked again and I said, "Yes my name is Andrea Simon." He looked at me again and said, "We'll we are both short and our hair and eye color are the same, maybe we are." I shook his hand and told him I had listened to him since I was young, because my parents loved his music. He smiled and said thank you and looked back to stare at Edie Brickell.

I stood there for a couple of songs and eventually followed my party to another part of the bar. I don't think I realized then that I had met Paul Simon. He was humble and so average-Joe that I tucked that memory far back into the recesses of my mind and almost forgot about it. Until a few months ago, as Amber and I listened to his music and then the memory came flashing back. Yep, that was the day I met Paul Simon and who knows maybe we are related?