The never ending nightmare

Mama stood out side the museum aged hand at her lips, worried look on her face.  I stood waiting as patiently as I could.  I had promised her I would not force her to go inside.

"It will be the same," she said, her soft accent seems to be heavy with the emotions.

"It's pictures, mom.  Sketches.  What people remember."

A man in a cart waited at the ramp leading to the museum, Mom got on the cart and I walked alongside it.  Once in the main building the air was cool, the main area was brightly lit.  The cart went to the right, down a wide walkway, the driver stopped at a arched opening.  Past this were the pictures,sketches, copies of news articles of old.  One word was over the doorway to the exhibit.  It said, Kristallnacht.

Mom nodded at that, as though encouraging herself to face the horror once more.  She stepped off the cart,and with help from me, went back to the nightmare she had seen for real.

Pictures of builings with broken windows, burned synagogue, and the sketches people had done.  The photos so vivid, you could almost step into the picture and live it. 

"Yes!  This is it!" Mom said pointing at one.  In the photo a grown man is surrounded by several young men.  The man wheres a hat, heavy long coat, slacks.  His hair is longish, and he has a full beard and mustache.  He looks to be a teacher,or business man, There was just a hint of a yellow on his jacket,  but the men surrounding him keep the viewer from being sure.

These men all ware uniforms, with Swastikas on the arms. 

"These were the Hitler yumen."  Mom's voice becomes louder. 

I get her to quiet down, breath slowly. 

"Mom I know.  It happened.  You were there. This exhibit is for others who were not there.  They don't have your memories.  You don't need these pictures."  Keeping my arm around her, I took her to a bench. "When I was nine, I saw boys like these, they attacked a Rabbi."

"You told me when I was much younger, what does Kristallnacht mean?"

"It was when Hitler encouraged the people to attack Jews.  Overnight it became dangerous to be of Jewish birth."  She again placed her hand on her lips.  Then she noticed what she was doing.  She looked at me hard. 

"This gesture I do, comes from that time.  When I got to my home I saw all my possessions being thrown out the window.  I remember screaming, and crying.  Watching all my treasures flying out the window.  I was making to much noise, and my grandmother came in a car and she and my aunt carried me into the car.  My lip got cut from one their rings.  They didn't mean to hurt me. But the SS would have grabbed me up, if my family hadn't taken care of me."

"What did the Hitler youth do to the Rabbi?"

"They burned his beard.  I did not stay.  I was so frightened.  But I saw they burned his beard."



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In 2003 my mother died.  Though she survived the Holocaust, cancer killed her.  Before she left this world she did a SHOAH , this photo is only in her memory.  But it needed to be written about.