Our life is an endless series of choices and consequences from those choices. Many choices are reversible if the outcome is not satisfactory, but at least one is not: the choice between life and death. History and literature gives us many case studies we can learn from—from Abraham and Jesus in the Bible to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and from the Jews in Spain during the Inquisition to the Jews and the non-Jews helping them during the Holocaust.
Recently, I was asked an unexpected question as I was talking to a visitor at the Museum’s Survivor Desk. A man asked for my advice about a choice he had to make. This Muslim man from India, who had suffered greatly because of his religion, wanted to know how he could best help his coreligionists in India. Should he go back and try to help “on the ground” and endure discrimination and persecution or stay in the United States in safety and try to help them from here? Was he inspired to ask his question by the venue and the Holocaust history replete with persecution and the lack of help? I will never know, but it gave me an experience that I had never had during my eight years of volunteering at the Museum.
Psychologist, social worker, or political activist I am not, but following the good, old Jewish custom, I responded to his question with a question: “What is the purpose of your life?” I did not want to change the topic, but I had learned from Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor himself, that life is primarily a quest for meaning. His book Man’s Search for Meaning is about his observations that the primary reason for one’s survival of the Holocaust was to find meaning in life in spite of the incredible horrors survivors experienced. There is not one universal “meaning” for everyone; we have to find our own reason to live a purposeful life.
This man was not looking for an explicit response whether to stay or go back to India. He had to establish for himself his ultimate goals in life. Once he finds them, he will have peace about his decision on how to achieve his goals. I told the visitor that it wasn’t until I had read Frankl’s book that I realized my mom and I had survived the Holocaust because she had been determined to protect me, regardless of the circumstances. Now I understand how she’d had the courage to defy government orders to report at the Óbuda brick factory from where the trains left for Auschwitz. Now, I can appreciate her endurance for three weeks in jail after she had been arrested and her ingenuity in tricking the guards to let her out.
By the time I finished talking, our visitor was in tears. My guess is that his tears were less about my mom’s story and more about the decision he had to make. He told me that he was determined to fight for his cause, for the complete religious freedom for Muslims in India, regardless of the personal price he had to pay.
Unfortunately, I did not ask for contact information, so I cannot know what happened after our visitor left the Museum. My hope is that one day I will get the news that discrimination against Muslims in India has ended and they are fully accepted into Indian society. I will be proud that our Museum and our visitor played a role in this welcome change.
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