The Kaleidoscope of History & Humanity

My grandmother, Savta to me, was born a week after Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass,” named so due to the amount of glass from broken windows that littered the street following an antisemitic attack in 1938. Kristallnacht is largely considered the inciting incident to the Holocaust, a genocide that took every one of my family members on that side but my grandmother and her parents. She grew up, a young child in Tel Aviv—experiencing the Second World War was all she knew. Despite this, when my grandmother speaks of childhood memories, they mainly consist of friendship and purpose. My grandmother's story is one about how to find belonging despite horror. It reflects the importance of people and community in our life. Good can be found, created, and cultivated even in the face of war and genocide. 

At the time, and before her birth, antisemitism was rampant, not just propagated from the Nazi regime and not just in Germany. Her parents were born in a poor Jewish neighborhood in central Poland. Antisemitism was so fierce that her father left his home and family and traveled to Palestine. His wife, Hannah, followed later, saying to her sister, “Give me a couple weeks to settle in before you join too,” as she left. However, Hannah was the last in the family to make it safely. She never forgave herself for the death of her sister. Not a single member of our family who stayed in Poland survived. In that town, those who weren’t gathered for concentration camps were gathered in a synagogue and set on fire. 

I was in seventh grade when my teacher assigned Night by Elie Wiesel, and suggested we didn't read it before bed. We learned of Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Buna. We read Wiesel’s descriptions of people brought to the crematoria, like lambs to the slaughter, or bloodstained bodies lying dead in trenches. I read that near the end of the war, the inmates of Buna, evacuating, ran without stopping for forty-two miles. Those who couldn’t run anymore were shot or trampled to death by thousands of weary and malnourished bodies struggling with all they had to continue pushing themselves forward. I learned of the Holocaust, and thought, as so many have before, how can humanity, how can good, exist in the same world as such depravity? In studying history, I gained awareness of the horror that humans can inflict on one another. This education resulted in a loss of faith, but I did not yet have the full story. 

My grandmother grew up with an ocean of unspoken horror. As children, my grandmother and her friends would fantasize about what they would do if Hitler found them. They would play a game of trying to come up with the most vicious things they could. They were kids, trying to make sense of brutality. Companionship and play were important components as they rebounded from the unspeakable. Her generation found community in response to the horror, and her peers were  her world. Among them she experienced true belonging. Palestine, from her point of view, was a beautiful place to grow up. It was a place of sanctuary and diversity. 

History is not just lived and experienced by adults. A component to studying history is to view it from all lenses and perspectives. As young children my grandmother and her friends would play house, a common game for many kids. They would assign roles: one would be the dad, one would be the mom, one would be the child, and so on. More than that though, they would assign locations. The dad would be from Austria, the mom would be from Poland, and the kid would be from England. Even as children playing, they understood that while everyone came from different countries, everyone was here now, ready to create a place that felt like home. Palestine was a melting pot of people, places, and stories, all coming together for one shared purpose: to create equity and safety; a place that you did not have to flee. 

As they saw it, the people of her generation had a unique opportunity, one thousands of years in the making, to create the state of Israel, a world, a society that was right and favorable, one humans would want to live in. They were the lucky ones. Her and her group of friends committed their lives towards this creation, which gave them a sense of place and purpose. She described everyone growing and learning together, all with a common goal. For example, everyone spoke Hebrew, but everyone was learning Hebrew, so they spoke with an accent that gave away where they were from. My grandmother learned Hebrew alongside her parents. Everyone grew up with a strong sense of pride for the country they came from, but more than that, hope for where they were.

To examine history from all lenses is to include personal experience, as well as academic study. World history is learned, but not before it is experienced by billions of people, from billions of viewpoints. My grandmother’s story simultaneously expanded my concept of humanity and expanded how I view the study of history. My grandmother and her story is a breathing example of the importance of investigating past events from all angles. Not only that, it demonstrates how good can exist despite horror. How people, even as millions die, have the undeniable gift of intimacy, love, and solidarity. The Holocaust serves as a contrast to that of the community and belonging that my grandmother felt growing up. As humans, we exist on a spectrum, with tremendous power for both benevolence and cruelty. One cannot receive recognition without the comparison of the other. So, to seventh grade me reading Night before bed, aghast and scared, I wish to say this: “Humanity, good, exists here in the world, right next to depravity and suffering. Both beat in the same beautiful, abhorrent, gracious, and terrifying world. Humans are more terrible, and more wonderful, than one student, at one desk, in one class, can ever know.”