On stealing other people's history.

Golden dreams flow like water / and the water always wins, for good or bad, once you let it in.

I find myself, as I get older, though hardly old by any standards, to be a collector. A collector, not ncessarily of things, but of ideas, thoughts, stories and other people's histories. Even in speaking to my own grandmother, I feel like a voyeur, like I'm listening to a history I have no right to. No right, maybe because I did not live it, or mayhap, because I'm not really her granddaughter. Well, not by blood anyway, but you would be hard pressed to find someone who didn't know I was her granddaughter, at least, in mind, proximity and spirit. No matter how strained that connection has been, I've counted on it - my last, great defender - but I digress.

Would I have more of a right to the histories of my blood-kin? That, I cannot answer. Yet, anyway, and it has always been 'yet.' I have no trouble with figures in art history. Though, that may be because the timeline I study there is more important that a single face, a single name. Or that it's far less ...tragic than the words of a Holocaust survivor, or images of my grandmother living in Germany, post World War II, before coming to that States. On a ship. I was on a plane, though I don't remember it. I never had to spend two weeks on a ship, crossing the Atlantic, hoping life would be better. My mother was on that ship too. It's times like this when I wish I were able to ask her about things like that. But, again, I digress.

Maybe art history is different, because in some small way, I am a part of that timeline. That maybe, I am ...brush-kin to these people, and their history is my own. The history of one's craft certainy belongs to you? Again, a question I cannot answer.

My ...fascination with Holocaust studies started last summer, when I was fool enough to take "Confronting the Holocaust." Fool, I say, because I did not know the toll this study would take ...is taking. It's not all terrible, though, and I am, for once, glad I was such a fool. I now have bonds with people that I never knew I could have such a bond with. There are others who don't think I'm weird for this interest. It's almost ...nice.

I bawled my eyes out more times than I can remember. I fought, not to understand, but because I didn't WANT to understand. I didn't want to know WHY. The semester previous, I has taken a Social Psycholoy class, and a lot of the models of social interaction and group dynamics mattered here. I didn't care - how could anyone be so cruel? As the class continued, it slowly dawned on me that I didn't need to explain it away, I had the tools for understanding, and that was the key. There are people to blame, but you can't blame everyone. Being willing to understand ...maybe 'understand' isn't the right word? Being able to ...remember, maybe, is the point. For every person who remembers, there is one less person who would allow history to repeat itself. I don't think I have the courage or greatness of character to do some of things Holocaust rescuers did, and I pray their necessity will never be seen again. But I would hope this candle lit within me does not burn in vain, that I WOULD do something. I am afraid of bring a coward and dishonoring the stories and histories I carry. So that I could be worthy of carrying them. So I no longer feel like my studies are only a way to live through the greatness of others.

I hope I someday get the opportunity to bring the words of these people to someone else. That their words do not die with me; not in the sense that I am the only one who carries them. In the sense that I hope my candle isn't snuffed out before lighting another.

That I know at least one person will bare witness when I am gone, and things like this will eventually cease.

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