Remembering and forgetting

It is appropriate that the Holocaust Centre should host Diana Whichtel talk about her book Driving to Treblinka a few days before Pesach, Passover. Pesach is about remembering the Exodus from Egypt. But we remember it as a miracle, as a mark of God's special relationship with the Jewish people. Diana Wichtel's book is about her search for a lost father. Her father escaped not from the land of bondage, but from a cattle car on a train taking him from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka to be murdered. That he managed to crawl through the small window of the cattle car, that he managed to jump off the train and not be killed by the fall, that he was not shot, not betrayed, managed to somehow join a partisan group in the forest and survive was a miracle. That he made it to America and join his cousins who were ready to help him was against the odds. Perhaps he had  too much faith in his ability to survive using his wits, living on his own resources. Finding a girl from New Zealand, much too young to appreciate all that he had been through, innocent of the slavery he witnessed, he thought that he found the promised land. But he was a damaged man. He was maimed by his experiences. He was charming, warm hearted, but the betrayals, the suspicions, and the sense of guilt were there shadowing him. His personal tragedy left its mark on his daughter. Many chose to try to forget the dark past. Living with harrowing memories is a burden inflicted on the survivors and their children who choose to remember. Jews are obligated to remember their ancestors as slaves in Egypt, but Diana, and others of her Second Generation group had a choice. They could remember, or forget. Diana Whitchel made the decision to seek out the scattered pieces of her father's life and remember.