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Taking Up Your Cross

Taking Up Your Cross

When people first learn that my mother survived the Holocaust, they frequently ask me if she was Jewish.[1] It’s understandable. The Nazi Final Solution targeted Jews. Six million of them died in the camps. It comes as a surprise to them when I explain that my mother...
Never Again

Never Again

“This is where your mother would have been forced to stand when she first passed through the camp gates. It’s called the Wailing Wall.” Rupert is on staff at what was once Mauthausen Concentration Camp. The granite walls, the imposing guard towers, the barracks, the...
Radical Liberation

Radical Liberation

“You have to take the bad with the good.” That’s how my mom usually responded to my kvetching about my circumstances. When I was disappointed, flabbergasted, outraged, or frustrated, those words never failed to infuriate me. What I heard her saying was, “Calm down.”...
Lessons from a Tattoo Artist

Lessons from a Tattoo Artist

My father served in the U. S. Navy during WWII. He saw his older shipmates’ crude, faded tattoos and heard their regrets about bearing a former girlfriend’s name on their bicep. So, he never got one. He sternly ordered me to follow his example. Thanks to a former...