Let the Memory Not Fade

[Sukerkin]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22892783

A very moving article on making sure that the lessons of how inhuman we can be are not forgotten.

 

[Mauthos]

Really good, touching article. Thanks for posting.

 

[aedrasteia]

Mark

We lived in Chicago during my childhood, in a neighborhood so filled with Polish and German
families that these were first second and third languages for almost everyone. My family was on the
3rd floor of a chicago 3-flat building and on the ground floor, Mr. Kopec lived, a piano tuner and pianist.
He was quiet but for the times he would play, odd times, late at night or before 5 am. He taught piano
lessons on 2 large beautiful upright pianos that took up all the space in the front room. Windows covered
with old-fashioned white lace curtains in a room with a few antique chairs.

I would play on the porch and he became my friend, kind and quiet, who would play Chopin and Tschaikovsky
and make pots and pots of tea. I was having a hard time learning things i needed to know; how to tell time, my address and especially my phone number but i knew a way I could remember it.

I told my mother to write it on my arm so i would always be able to look at it.

Mr. Kopec had a hard time remembering his phone number too,
I knew because i saw it on his arm once when he pushed up the sleeve of his sweater to keep from spilling the tea. I was almost 5 and worried by my mother's white face and tears. She wasn't angry, just so sad that she cried a little and struggled to explain what i had seen. She was wise. Finally she told me not to ask Mr. Kopec questions about those numbers, just be his friend and tell him about the little things that happened everyday, my parakeets and finches, trees and flowers, things that would make him smile. He played music at night, she said, because it helped him not to be sad.

I memorized my phone number by writing it on my arm for a while and when i finally knew i wouldn't forget it I told Mr. Kopec he had helped me, but never told him how. I had learned not to remind him of the bad people who had put a number on his arm because they hated him so much they took away his name.

Here is his name: Andrzej Kopec . Not forgotten

 

[arnisador]

A survivor of the identical twin experiments lives in our small town and works to remind people, including having started a small Holocaust museum.

http://www.candlesholocaustmuseum.org/