karenika - books - to see you again

To See You Again

The Americans came to realize how traumatized we had been by what had gone through and what we had witnessed. To their undying credit, there in the displaced persons' camps, they began group therapy and counseling for the survivors, trying to help us find our way out of the nightmare that had consumed our lives for the last few years. In therapy, we all told heartbreaking stories. We realized, as we heard from survivors about their loss of everyone in their families, how lucky we four were. We kept hoping that any day my father would find us.

We met one family whose story made us laugh as well as cry. They were Romanians, a father, a mother, a grandmother and a couple of children, who had been rounded up by the Nazis for deportation. This family found itself, in a railway carriage with a travelling troupe of people of restricted growth, then known as dwarves, who just happened to be caught up in the round-up as well. The family and the dwarves became friendly as the train made its way from Romania into Poland and the concentration camp at Auschwitz. When they were told to get out of the packed carriage, the grandmother had trouble getting up and one of the dwarves went to help her, saying, "I've got you, Baba," using the Polish word for grandmother.

It just so happened that the diabolic Nazi doctor, Joseph Mengele, was standing there when this happened, and he turned to stare at the sight of a dwarf helping a perfectly normal old woman out of the cattle car. "Are you all related?" he asked.

The father of the group answered quickly. "Yes, we're all one family," although he later confessed that he didn't have any idea he'd said that.

Mengele raised an eyebrow. "I have never seen a family where some are normal and some are dwarves. What kind of genetic game is this?" he asked.

Of course, no one answered him. He motioned to the guards to take the 'family' away to a special building, where they remained for the rest of the war, well fed and taken care of, and safe, as the Nazis took endless blood samples from them in an attempt to understand the magic of their gene. It was so rare that we heard a story where anyone had outwitted the Nazis in order to survive.

Of all the books I've ever read, and there've been many, I've consistently avoided reading anything that had to do with World War II. I know that might qualify under ignorance and that's a bad thing and I know that knowledge is always the best tool. I even know that those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it.

But I avoided WWII novels nonetheless.

And had I known that To See You Again was a war story I'm quite sure I would have never started it. But my mom brought it over from Turkey and said that it came highly recommended from my sister who's not an avid reader, so she said that since she read it in a weekend, I'd read it in a day.

Which I didn't. Well, it took me weeks to actually start it, but once I started it, I did read the whole thing in a few hours. And I cried for just about as long after it was over. Betty's story is amazing, horrific, unbearable and now that I read it I can see that even if the past isn't pleasant and for many Jews it is far from that, it's still something that's important to know. And I'm glad I read this novel.

As for reading more WWII books, I still need some time before I can go there. Which might be why the excerpt I chose is not a perfect representation of the novel.