Good evening. Like many others of my generation, I heard some stranger-than-fiction Holocaust stories when I was growing up: from family, extended family, and friends of family. And when I did, I discovered that different people come away from trauma with different responses, on emotional, personal, and political levels. In the case of my mother, the response was a continuous stream of activity and optimism.
She kept herself busy by first volunteering and then leading at the ARC of Monroe, with teaching conflict resolution in city schools, with public speaking on her Holocaust experience, with obtaining 2 master’s degrees, with supporting friends and family – her in-laws lived next door, and we had cousins worldwide who lived with us for extended periods – and with her own physical and spiritual development, and all this while raising 4 children.
