Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I had another topic planned for my "comeback" post. I'm up to old habits again (in all senses of the phrase) and have been neglecting my page of late. But tonight, I saw something that caused an emotional response in me that I just can't understand.
This past Sat., I was spending the weekend w/ a friend and sleeping over @ his house. Late Sat. night (or early Sun. morning, depending on your POV) we were up watching a TV show called Band of Brothers, an HBO miniseries based on a company of paratroopers from WWII. The last episode we watched for the night showed the company liberating a camp of Jewish workers. It was so...horrifying. To see the ribcage of a full grown man, his skin almost paper thin stretched across it so tightly, you could count each individual rib, even through the TV. That, I think, is what hit me the most: how emanciated they all were. In this particular episode, towards the end, they had to tell the recently liberated workers they had to go back into the camp until adequate shelter could be provided for them. It was gut-renching. Even though they were actors, it was a terrible thing to see and hear: them screaming, crying, literally begging not to be put back inside and I broke down. It...reached me, touched me in ways I don't fully comprehend and can't really explain. But, as the episode ended, I dried my eyes, dutifully sobered by the events I had just seen, chalked it up to an isolated incident and thought no more of it. Until tonite. CSI: NY tonite centered around the Holocaust. It was wonderfully done, excellently convoluted, with enough suspense and action to keep you guessing until they solved the case. At one point, it was necessary for one of the main characters to watch an interview given by one of the survivors, telling of her cousin and what happened to her. Predictably, my eyes teared, but I was fine. Toward the end, within the final 5 mins., another survivor was telling his story of how an American soldier picked him up and carried him out of the camp b/c he was too weak to walk out on his own. Midway through the recounting, I broke down again and started crying like a leaky faucet. And it restarted when it was revealed to be the father of the earlier mentioned main character. And it continued through the end of the show.
What is wrong with me? I'm not Jewish. I don't personally know any Holocaust survivors, nor was any of my immediate family members involved in it. But bring it up, and I start the waterworks. I just don't get why. I mean, I have always had, and will continue to have, a great deal of respect and admiration for survivors of the Holocaust. To have something like that happen to you b/c of what you believe? I have sworn to never forget it, and I haven't. I just...didn't expect it to hit me quite that way. And don't fully understand why it did.
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