The Things We Cannot Say

by Kelly Rimmer

Hatred was like some otherworldly beast, seeded in small acts of violence and oppression against our Jewish citizens, growing in strength as the power-hungry fed it with rhetoric and propaganda.

with each one. Soon enough, I was in a fetal position against the dirt floor, my hands over my ears. A particularly loud explosion rocked the whole cellar, and as dust rained down on us, I found myself sobbing in fear. “Was that our house?” I choked, in a moment of silence. “No,” Father said, his tone gently scolding. “We will know it if the house goes. It is Trzebinia, they

To destabilize a group of people is not at all difficult, not if you are willing to be cruel enough. You simply knock out the foundations, and a natural consequence is that the rest begins to tumble. The Nazis knew this—and that’s why one of their very first tactics in Poland was to execute or imprison those likely to lead in any uprising against them. Aleksy and our mayor were among the first of almost one hundred thousand Polish leaders and academics who would be executed under the Intelligenzaktion program during the early days of the invasion. The shock wore off too soon for Emilia and she began shrieking at the top of her lungs. A soldier near to us turned his gun toward her, and I did the bravest and stupidest thing I’d ever done in my life, at least to that point. I pushed in front of her, and I begged the guard, “Please sir, please.

There

Hatred spreads—it doesn’t burn out with time. Someone needs to stand up and stop it. You

intently. “Do you think Tomasz is still alive?” she asked me. I blinked at her, surprised both at the question and the resigned tone with which she asked it. I shook myself mentally and

What happens when stories like theirs are lost? What happens when there’s no one left to pass your experience on to, or you just can’t bring yourself to share it?

“War breaks us down to nothing more than our most selfish will to survive—but when we rise above that instinct, miracles can still happen.

Life has a way of shattering

our expectations,

of leaving our hopes in pieces without explanation. But when there’s love in a family, the fragments left behind from our shattered dreams can always be pulled toget...

Our family life is never going to be easy, but that can’t stop any one of us from reaching for our dreams. It cost our ancestors too damned much for us to have this life—the best thing we can do to honor them is to live it to its fullest.