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There were no fam- Elyse Foltyn ily crests or glossy Commentary photo albums to embellish the frag- mented stories we clung to over the years. Our heritage is revealed by only a handful of tattered photographs that hurriedly made their way out of Europe in a pocket. A shadow of a family tree rounded out the project. Lily was so excited to share her assign- ment with her classmates that she vol- unteered to present first. But now, Lily’s enthusiasm was barely a memory. The prior night she somehow made peace with the incomplete lives of three grand- parents who survived the Holocaust but lost scores of family members. Now, like so many memories of our past, she was shattered like fragments of crystal. “My teacher asked me what Papa Steve ate when he hid in the woods,” Lily mumbled weakly. “I told her I didn’t know what he ate. Did Papa Steve ever tell you what he ate?” I was mortified. Could this teacher who we have only known to be sensitive and kind truly have been so detached? Didn’t she recognize that the typical questions and rules of research could not be applied to the catastrophic lives Lily described? It seemed her teacher was seeking complete details on an incomplete life. However, in this situation, it was both insignificant and too late to compile this research. My father passed without ever being able to bring himself to share these specifics. In fact, it was merely a dozen years before he died that he had an epiphany of sorts and broke his silence to begin sharing stories of his life during the Holocaust. Like most survivors, he didn’t want to “burden his children” with this unimaginable history and pain. I considered myself fortunate to learn Like most survivors, my father didn’t want to “burden his children” with this unimaginable history and pain. what I did about my father’s life and the history of our family from him. When Dad was finally able to talk about his upbringing, we spoke of seminal moments. We talked about the Polish shtetl (now the Ukraine) in which he grew up; his father’s leather tannery and his uncle who was the mayor of the next shtetl. Dad’s eyes became glossy each time he described the porcelain texture of his mother’s skin and her shiny dark mane. Although his European accent was always heavy, his words were barely audible each time he recalled leaving the family home with his sister in anticipa- tion of the Holocaust destroying their town. He said he felt a hole in his heart when his parents would not join them and forbade them from taking their baby brother, Ephraim (after whom I am named), with them. He learned years later that his parents and brother were shot into a mass grave by the Nazis. On the rare occasions we spoke of all these weighty topics, my father never had an interest in telling me how he foraged for food in the woods. And I never had the heart to ask him. I have come to believe that missing details are often more telling than the details themselves. The lack of something can speak volumes for what is really tak- ing place. I felt this over and over again as we toured Berlin last year. At the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, we got lost in towering cement monoliths. The memorial, designed by architect Peter Eisenman, consists of 2,711 concrete slabs, arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field. By all mea- sures, it is powerful. However, as stirring as the concrete slabs were, I could not decide whether the memorial was the cement or the empty space. There is often a sense that absence is presence. As emotions simmered, the intensity of my reaction evolved. I concluded that Lily’s teacher, an oth- erwise sympathetic and supportive men- tor, must not fully understand those that have experienced mass tragedy in their lives. Perhaps she has not yet discerned how to read the details that are missing. Then, I wondered if her unsuspecting questions spoke more to the enormous power of the subject matter than to her disregard of our family wounds. By all measures, the Holocaust itself is an unnerving topic for most people. Could it be that the intensity of the experiences, the powerful stories Lily shared with such innocence could daunt even the best teacher? I am not entirely certain if my initial reaction to Lily’s disappointment was that of a momma bear protecting her cub or a daughter protecting her Holocaust survivor father — who spent a lifetime shielding me. When you consider that 70 percent of the killings by grizzly bears are by mothers defending cubs, you begin to understand what may have been my innate reaction we moms have. Or, was my reaction a learned reflex? An internal response of a child of a survivor protecting her now deceased father, his family, other survivors and the 6 million Jews they stood for? I find myself protecting and clinging to my family’s past more and more. It is a measured dance I participate in daily. Shifting between being proud of my heri- tage as a child of a survivor and being protective of all those that have been hurt by my family history or a similar his- tory. Sadly, now, I can see the list of those touched by the Holocaust extends to include Lily and her generation. *