For better or for worse, the Holocaust remains an important focal point for dialogue in the Jewish community -- both internally and externally. It is a central organizing point of Jewish experience -- probably the most important event in Jewish history (even more than the establishment of Israel) since the destruction of the Second Temple.
My family, however, was not directly affected by the Holocaust. All of my immediate ancestors had immigrated to the United States prior to World War II (seven of my great-grandparents were immigrants -- the eighth was born in the US as well). It seems like most Jews have a relatively close relative who is or is descended from survivors. I don't. I feel awkward talking about the Holocaust as something that personally affects me when I don't have that ancestral connection many other Jews have. It feels almost like cheating.
We did have a branch of my paternal grandfather's family which had remained behind in Europe. We never heard from them again, and we assumed that they had perished, until a few years ago (in my lifetime) we suddenly reestablished contact (this wing of the family also includes my "twin" David Schraub, who now also resides in Chicago. Small world). Obviously, I'm delighted that they all survived. But relating this experience feels dangerous to me; almost akin to Holocaust denial. The classic response to Holocaust denial is "where do you think all those Jews went?" My family offers a counterpoint: we simply lost track due to the war. Again, this is anxiety-producing, because clearly I don't want my main familial intersection with public discourse about the Holocaust to be buttressing the deniers.
I don't believe that I am actually distant from the Holocaust. It is an accident of ancestry that my family was relatively unaffected by the genocide -- I still know that were I there, my life would have been forfeit as well. And, knowing that the Holocaust was not some insane aberration but rather the extreme end of the continuum which governs how Jews are treated, the "lessons" of the Holocaust are as potent for an American-descended American Jew as they are for our European or African or Middle Eastern cohorts. Insofar as the Holocaust still is a normatively meaningful event in crafting policy or engaging in ethical deliberation, I have as much claim to it as any other Jew. I really do believe that.
But still. It's alienating. I don't feel like I'm a credible speaker for my own experience, and that hurts.
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I have to admit I'm having a hard time with why this would cause you anxiety. It had never occurred to me, until I read this, that "most" American Jews have relatives who were directly affected by the Holocaust. I'll admit it's not something I've talked about with every Jewish person I've ever known, but I had assumed that, given the peak years of Jewish immigration from Europe, that most American Jews are from families that got out before. Not that no relatives would have been affected, but that it would have been distant cousins that they would not have had direct knowledge of (that's what I assume is the case for my family - we're one more step removed because it was my great-great-grandparents who immigrated, with the exception of one great-grandmother, and in most of the families, all of the siblings came to the States, so we'd be talking my grandparents third cousins).
Or maybe it's that as the child of intermarriage who is intermarried myself, I have lots of practice feeling like a fraud and a cheat as a Jew, so I'm used to it by now. (And the last thing I need is to add one more point where I'm not authentic enough.)
But as for your point ... It is what it is. Whether you had relatives who were directly affected or not doesn't change the historical facts of what happened, but neither does it give you more or less authority to speak. Even if you had relatives who were directly affected, you would still be a privileged American Jew (not that there's anything wrong with that). Even though you don't have relatives who were directly affected, you still carry the weight of it, like we all do.
Maybe I'm wrong about the stats. I do think the normative view of American Jews include a relative who is a Holocaust survivor. In virtually every book I read as a kid with a Jewish family, the grandfather survived the Holocaust. That impressed upon me that the Jewish Cleaver family includes Holocuast survivors.
Memoir or fiction? I'm not trying to challenge you, just curious. I know I read a ton of stuff growing up that involved the Holocaust in some way, but somehow I never absorbed the idea that I was unusual for not having a Holocaust survivor in the known family tree.
Chag sameach btw.
Chag Samach.
Fiction. The paradigmatic work I'm thinking of here is The Devil's Arithmetic. I don't think there were many memoirs when I was growing up in the time period I'm talking about -- at least, those geared towards young adults.
Sorry for this serial posting, but I wanted to clarify why I asked about your reading material. I know that when I shop for Jewish-themed books for my son, there are a tremendous number of books that include some sort of Holocaust theme. I'm steering clear of them for now because I'm just not prepared to deal with that on a three-year-old's level (and yes, there are Holocaust-themed books for kids that young - what I think of that is a topic for another day), so I don't know how they all handle the topic. However, I could easily imagine using a grandfather who is a Holocaust survivor as a good way to enter the topic in books for younger people.
Jews want their children to know about the Holocaust, and that's totally legitimate. And each book, on its own, isn't creating some kind of norm for what the standard American Jewish family looks like, but collectively, they are. I don't know if you saw it not as a real or factual norm, but a norm that's been created over several generations of trying to educate the younger generation about the Holocaust, if that would lessen your anxiety about it. Does what I'm saying make any sense?
(Of course, if you're talking about books based on actual families, then none of what I'm saying applies.)
Cross-posted. Sorry.
I think most of the stuff I read was set during the Holocaust itself. I think the first thing I ever read that was from the perspective of being American and having a relative who was a survivor was when I read Maus in high school.
I mean, this whole bit is irrational on my part. I'm aware of that. I just... I dunno. It's like I'm missing a card from my deck. It's true that the Holocaust is part of legacy of all Jews. But it's different trying to raise it when you can't claim that immediate connection. I feel very vulnerable on that score when folks try and challenge the legacy (particularly when they try and minimize the contemporary import of it); like I'm precisely who they have in mind when they imagine the pathological Jew who is haunted by fictitious oppression nightmares that aren't really part of their experience.
They're wrong, but I worry that they're "right" in the sense that their interpretation has more social purchase than mine does.
This vaguely reminds me of my friend who once said that she felt sort of less fully feminist because she'd never had an abortion.
I can certainly appreciate that. And I'm sorry if I came of as trying to "solve" this for you. I think I'm coming from my own place where I'm no stranger to anxiety about my Jewish identity (perhaps a place you are less familiar with).
For whatever it's worth, I'm not sure having that card to play would change the calculus that much (to mix my metaphors). You'd just get psychoanalyzed in slightly different terms.
PG, that's funny. I sometimes feel like I'm somehow less feminist because I have a kid. Real feminists are childfree by choice! The really ironic thing about that is that having a kid really solidified my feminism. I mean, I was always a feminist, but having a kid really opened my eyes to certain things about women's position in society that I had not seen very clearly before.
I'm sorry that you feel this anxiety. Most Jews I know, outside of my family, have no personal connection to the Holocaust. I'm always asking Jews "When did your family come here (to the US)?" -- many don't know, because it was that long ago. It's funny; I sometimes feel alienated because I know so few American Jews who, like me, do have a direct personal connection to the Holocaust. (My maternal grandparents both escaped, barely, as children just old enough to remember everything.)
As for your story providing an alternative answer about where all those Jews went: stories of survival are just as important as stories of death. The stories of how my family survived are truly incredible; I'm sure they are the most personally meaningful, beautiful, and profound stories I will know in my life. If the Holocaust is going to be part of Jewish culture moving forward (and it clearly is), it is those stories -- the stories of survival, of strength, of incredible luck -- that will help and sustain us.
Actually, you know what? I don't know a single other person, outside my family, who has a direct connection to the Holocaust. So I think you're situation is very much the norm for Americans, David.
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