Never give up

I recently read Gerda Weissmann Klein’s book All But My Life. It is the story of Klein’s six year journey from her idyllic childhood in Bielitz, Poland with her parents and older brother being shattered when the Nazis marched in and took over in 1939. She was eventually separated from her family and sent to German labor camps.

The stripping away of all her rights and dignity did not happen overnight. It was slow and gradual and horrifically cruel over a six year period. She managed to survive, even the grueling Death March in the snow, and was eventually liberated in May 1945 by American troops. She weighed only 68 pounds and her hair had turned white when she was liberated.

She would eventually marry one of the soldiers, Kurt Weissmann, who was part of that liberation. Even though she survived, she lost both her parents who died at Auschwitz and her brother, as well as many dear friends that she made in the labor camps.

The bright side of Weissmann Klein’s story is that she and her young friends were able to create a community of love and friendship in the work camps, even amidst the horror that stripped them of their dignity, their health and their families and life they once had enjoyed.

We also watched a short (39 minutes) documentary film One Survivor Remembers from 1995 (now streaming on Disney+/HBO/Hulu) that interviews Gerda Weissmann Klein and shares part of her story.

President Obama presented Gerda Weissmann Klein with the 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom. At that ceremony he read a statement she had written:

I pray you never stand at any crossroads in your own lives, but if you do, if the darkness seems so total, if you think there is no way out, remember, never ever give up.

Never give up.

I have never had to endure what she endured. But I think of her words often on the dark days when I shudder at the words coming out of the mouths of Donald Trump and others in his cabinet. I find myself angry at their actions which seem as cruel, if not more so, than the actions of the Nazis during Gerda Weissmann Klein’s horrific ordeal.

I cannot help but think about the deportation camps where we are sending undocumented—and sometimes documented—immigrants in this country today. It is hard to swallow that such a thing could be happening again and this time right here in America. Whatever we call the detention facilities today the truth is that they are concentration camps, full of the same cruelty, hunger and filth that the Nazis boasted of before and during World War II.

This week we also watched a film The Swedish Connection on Netflix. This film, set in World War II, is about a Swedish foreign ministry bureaucrat Gösta Engzell, who, with some of his work colleagues, develops and executes covert ways to rescue European Jewish refugees by using legal loopholes and paperwork.

Who could imagine that a film about bureaucracy could be so inspiring!? Thousands of Jews were rescued through the efforts of these office workers who skillfully turned neutral Sweden into a moral force. Their efforts were both brave and clever and, in the end, absolutely heroic in what they were able to accomplish.

The film reminded me that we all can and need to do something. However small or insignificant or impossible it may seem.

Tom and I are also rewatching the Downton Abbey series and words spoken in a recent episode this week struck me hard:

It’s doing nothing that’s the enemy.

We have to decide what we each can do and then we must do it. Is it joining in a NO KINGS protest? Is it calling and writing our representatives (I use that term loosely as I do not feel represented by mine currently serving). Is it praying? Is it working to feed those in our own communities? Is it caring and loving our friends and families and making sure we are there for them when they need us? Is it working and voting for candidates that we feel will truly represent us in Congress? We have to decide for ourselves and do the something we can do. Whatever it is we are able to do.

Because doing nothing is the enemy. And we must never give up. Never.