Today, January 27, is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The date was chosen because it represents the date 80 years ago on which Auschwitz was liberated by the Russians.
My Jewish father was on a Project Paperclip team exfiltrating German scientists so the Russians couldn't get them during the last chaotic months of the Nazi collapse. He and the Dutch scientist Dr. Gerard Kuiper (as in Kuiper Belt) traveled through the chaos in a jeep. My father, being a Calech sophomore dropout because of getting drafted, and having researched rockets during the war, was tasked with finding and defusing booby traps. Part of their job was going through file cabinets in abandoned buildings gathering scientific research documents. He said the retreating Nazis jammed human body parts into file cabinet drawers.
"...woman spat and said, “These filthy Jews are coming back.”
And people wonder why so many were desperate for a Jewish homeland and why these cult-like campus demonstrators for Hamas' snide comments that we should "go back to Europe" are so painful. My only hope is that one day, they will look back at what they did and wonder, "What in the hell was I thinking"?
Howard & Nancy Kleinburg, think I saw them on Regis years ago, she pulled him off a stack of corpses & he found her in Toronto years later, married for over 60 years. That survivors like your Mother (not to suggest there are any like your mother) can see the absolute WORST of humanity & still go on IS remarkable. To say the absolute least...
Yes, and thank you for noticing that. What I find amazing is how positive my mother always was. Even on the ship you can see her smiling. Through all that she was never defeated.
I cried so much reading this. Thank you.
My Jewish father was on a Project Paperclip team exfiltrating German scientists so the Russians couldn't get them during the last chaotic months of the Nazi collapse. He and the Dutch scientist Dr. Gerard Kuiper (as in Kuiper Belt) traveled through the chaos in a jeep. My father, being a Calech sophomore dropout because of getting drafted, and having researched rockets during the war, was tasked with finding and defusing booby traps. Part of their job was going through file cabinets in abandoned buildings gathering scientific research documents. He said the retreating Nazis jammed human body parts into file cabinet drawers.
Body parts in filing cabinets. Oh I believe it. Depravity at it's "finest".
Your dad did some important "high risk" work in those days. Smart fellow (and the apple falls close to the tree;).
"...woman spat and said, “These filthy Jews are coming back.”
And people wonder why so many were desperate for a Jewish homeland and why these cult-like campus demonstrators for Hamas' snide comments that we should "go back to Europe" are so painful. My only hope is that one day, they will look back at what they did and wonder, "What in the hell was I thinking"?
Howard & Nancy Kleinburg, think I saw them on Regis years ago, she pulled him off a stack of corpses & he found her in Toronto years later, married for over 60 years. That survivors like your Mother (not to suggest there are any like your mother) can see the absolute WORST of humanity & still go on IS remarkable. To say the absolute least...
Remarkable.
Yes, and thank you for noticing that. What I find amazing is how positive my mother always was. Even on the ship you can see her smiling. Through all that she was never defeated.