In my adolescence I developed an attitude that I knew all about the holocaust - that I knew about it because my mother had told me about it when I was a child. I did not want to know any more - I did not see the need. I satisfied my thirst for history by confining my reading to books on military operations in the Second World War.
Even when my uncle Icek wrote his book - the book of his life before and during the war; his experiences in the concentration camp; his loss of his family - I felt I didn't need to read the book. I read it several years later, now with both my parents deceased. I thought of my uncle Icek as a hero for having written this book, and told him so. Unfortunately by then my uncle had suffered a couple of strokes, and had forgotten about his masterpiece.
With now my mother deceased as well as my father, I suddenly developed and obsession with the Holocaust - an obsession to find out as much as I could. I had no problems getting my fill of depression. Stories of the Holocaust - life stories of survivors and their murdered families abounded everywhere - in books, in the media and, of course, on the internet.
I suddenly wanted to return to Poland for a visit - to visit the concentration camp where my mother stayed and where her mother was gassed; to visit Lodz, the city where both my mother and father lived - where my mother's family lived and worked, and where I was born; I wanted to once again visit Ciechocinek, of which I had so many fond memories. I thought that at the very least I would be paying homage to my mother - to my mother and her family.
My father? Sadly, at that time I did not have much interest in his past. At that time the terror my father put my mother and I through, and my mother's hatred for him, imbued me with a dislike for what he was and what he had done.
In September 1999 I travelled to Poland with my family. I visited Auschwitz, the concentration camp where my mother lost most of her family. I visited Lodz, where I was born and where I lived as a child, and where my parents lived and suffered o harshly under the Nazis.
I visited Ciechocinek, the place where I went to on several summer holidays. Pleasant memories of happy and blissful days with my mother and father flooded back.
I found my mother's father's grave in the Lodz Jewish Cemetery. I did not know then where to look for graves of my father's ancestors, and the time we had left was short. I hoped to return to Lodz in the future - to look for my father's past - but have doubts that I will ever do so.