No idea.

I have a passion that is Holocaust literature and Holocaust education. There are so many aspects of this passion of mine that I could delve into in this single entry but I will hold myself back and focus in on something that only added to this drive in me to share these lessons about the Holocaust with other people.

Yesterday I attended a Holocaust Education conference at Wayne State College and I had the distinct privilege of meeting a woman named Rose Rosenberg who is 88 years old and lives today in Omaha, Nebraska. She is petite Jewish woman who is full of spunk and who still radiates beauty. Rose lived and survived in the infamous concentration camp named Auschiwitz. This is an extraordinary miracle. What is even more wondrous is that she was separated from his mother, father, two brothers, and two sisters, is that, and few years after, found a brother and two sisters again when she was deported to Auschiwitz. It was evident to me, as I was sitting the front row of this classroom, eye to eye with this woman, that God had placed his hand on her many, many years prior to the moment we met.

She told several stories, including the moment that she had lost her brother (just a year younger then herself) to the Nazi soilders who dragged him to his fate in the gas chambers that killed so many individual lives of worth to God and man. As I was sitting next to my brother, who is only a year younger then me as well, and who I also consider a dear friend and a blessing, I was moved by this woman’s will to keep living.

Interestingly enough, the portion of her story I remember most is not her story in being sent to the camp, the terrors of that horrid place, and being freed to a new life. The portion of her story that I will never forget is something she explained that happened after World War II had ended. So many of us think that after the victims were rescued, their life would go back to normal in reality the journey to normal had just begun.

Rose moved to Omaha with her two sisters and an older cousin and began a tailoring shop in the basement of a business downtown. She shared some interesting stories about how the Boys Town organization helped get their business of the ground and it was apparent that she had some financial success in her life.

On Yom Kippur, a very holy day in the Jewish religion, Rose and her two sisters decided it was time to return back to their faith and culture and walk down the street, to the Jewish synagogue, for worship. They walked into the temple, decorated with color and chandeliers and candles. They saw a group of people, just a decorated, just as beautiful, just as well-put-together. Rose then said, when she looked down at her tattered rags, it was the most horrible feeling. It didn’t even cross these girls minds that they would feel so out of place. They didn’t speak the language, the weren’t correctly dressed….

But more importantly, they had experienced hell, and these people….

Their people….

Had no idea.

They were oblivious.

If they did have an idea?

They had no idea.

This picture stirred my heart. How out of place these women must of felt in a time where they most needed comfort and encouragement and love and faithfulness and mercy.

When Rose talked about this day, tears still welled in her eyes.

It has left me remembering what makes us different. It has left me wondering why I am so quick to judge someone that walks into my life- for whatever unjust reason- and I have no idea….

Where they have been and…

Why they are the way they are.

How I am letting victims walk into my decorated hallways and making them feel inadequate?

After Rose spoke to us, because I was so close to her, I lept up from my seat to touch her, hug her, and tell her how grateful I was to be able to hear her unbelievable story.

Before I could do so, this little, tiny older woman looked at me straight in the eye, touched my face, and said:

“I was a beautiful young woman when this happened. A beautiful woman just like you.”

Truth:

We are not so different.

We just have no idea.