Echoes of Memory

Friedel

The red clay mixed with brown earth makes a somber noise as it is shoveled onto the plain pine casket. It contains the body of my second cousin Friedel.

The Little Red Hat

I have a falling apart album of black-and-white photos. Among the pictures of me as a radiant baby is a small paper print of a photo negative. On it you can see three adults and a little girl. I am the little girl, and I am holding my mom’s hand. Next to her is my father and a person who is unknown to me. My mother has a scarf on her head, and she holds a little hat in her spare hand. I remember the scarf and I remember the hat. 

The Yellow Badge

My grandmother had a box filled with buttons, threads, and pieces of fabric.

The Power of Trust and Faith

Dini

Dini Polak is a lively Dutch woman in her mid-80s who has a debilitating muscle and balance disorder that has kept her in a wheelchair and homebound for ten years, but whose social media presence alone testifies to her avid interest in world affairs, politics, and literature.

Reinhart

Recently, I spoke to a group of eighth graders via Zoom. From what I could see, the students in the several classrooms were very attentive and well prepared. Using the PowerPoint prepared by the Museum’s Office of Survivor Affairs, I told the story of my Holocaust experience.

Dolle Dinsdag

Our Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, pleaded with Americans during a televised program on Monday, March 29, 2021. With emotion in her voice, she implored all of us to still be vigilant and to keep all of the previous proposed measures, such as masks and distance mitigation. At that time, the coronavirus threat was not over yet. She said, “Please stay with it for a little while longer.”

To Share

When I returned from the deportation to Miskolc in 1945, my uncle Gabor Zoltan was already back home. He had survived years in a forced labor camp.

Table Tennis in My Life

On November 21, 2009, I gave a speech as I was being inducted into the Sports Hall of Fame at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington (JCCGW). The event was a dinner and fundraiser for children with special needs, a cause very dear to me since my son Dov has Down syndrome and has needed much help from organizations such as this one.

D-Day and Movies

Steven Spielberg’s movie Saving Private Ryan paid tribute to a famous, if not the most famous, battle in history: D-Day in France on June 6, 1944. The movie depicts the landing of the Allied forces at the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. The movie shows the landing, soldiers jumping into the water, the battle, and soldiers dying from German machine-gun fire. This is the most impressive and even shocking scene. I fully understand the scene, because one summer I stood on those hills where the German machine-gun bunkers were located. I looked down to the sea and saw the steep rock walls. I concluded that to climb up to the hills from the sea was a mission impossible, even without the machine-gun fire.