Holocaust survivors, second generation (13)

My cousin called.

He found out about my accident and wanted to know how I am doing.

We lost contact shortly after an unpleasant phone call I had with his mother. He told me that she had broken her hip (or something) some time ago and that she was recovering well. He kept on speaking about her as if he wanted to pull out from me expressions of sadness about her situation. I noticed by myself how little I cared.

Finally as a sort of exchange to do him a favour (because he showed interest in my situation) I asked how she was doing and wished him the best for his mother (I couldn’t bring myself to tell him to wish her my best). We finished our conversation and he told me that he would call me again soon, and I knew he wouldn’t.

It seems we both inherited our mothers’ talent to communicate and converse in silence.

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Holocaust survivors, second generation (10)

Two cousins, two perceptions.
To my cousin, she was the nicest grandmother imaginable, but to me... My first vivid memory of her was when I suppose I was 8 or 9 years old. We had not seen her for a while and my mother took me to the bus station to fetch her. Walking towards us was this old, aloof, surly and sombre woman. Then there is this other occasion I remember; I must have been 11 or so. I was waiting somewhere when she coincidentally walked by. I went over to greet her, innocent and naïve as only kids can be, and she looked at me with some disgust. She continued without even stopping or saying anything to me.

“Your mother acted as a spoiled child in Bergen-Belsen.”
What coloured this relationship to such extent? Was it bad chemistry between mother and daughter, plain wickedness or something else? Why did that woman favour her eldest daughter and her children above her other daughter and hers? My cousin recently told me that according to his mother, my mother acted like a spoiled child in the concentration camp (she was 12 when the war ended). That remark shone a whole new light on the situation for me.

Family as relics of pain?
Painful memories dug up, flashbacks, just by seeing someone or hearing the name of a murdered spouse (I’m named after my grandfather, her husband). If so, I feel pity for this woman who wasn't capable of digesting her emotions, but vented them frustratedly. If not... well... at least I had the two nicest grandparents imaginable; on my father’s side.

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Holocaust survivors, second generation (8)

The relationship between the two sisters was tensed for as long as I remember. They even didn’t talk for a while. The contact was renewed only shortly before my mother passed away.

I understood from my cousin that his mother wouldn’t mind telling me about what happened to them in the war, so I decided to call her.

I could almost touch the tension between the two sisters in the intonations of the few polite distant words she spoke. The silences in between were yelling at me; telling me even more. It was if like she was using me to communicate with my mother, as if I had inherited my mother’s role. Then she told me that if she had time she would call me back, and we hung up.

I felt dismissed, abandoned and I cried.

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