Fear

I've always loved the Anais Nin quote:

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“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

Today, I'm looking at it differently. I think this quote is about how fear controls us.

Being the eternal optimist, I've always viewed this quote as the hopeful possibility of the future: the potential that lies within all of us. But today, I'm thinking about how the flip side of that possibility is how we let fear become our driving factor, and how we can choose fear because the fear is more comfortable - painful that it may be - than the risk of stepping outside of fear. It occurs to me with some shock that we can choose the comfort of our fear. The comfort of our fear? Isn't fear uncomfortable? Isn't fear the enemy?

Maybe. But we can grow comfortable with the monster we know, and more afraid of the monster that we don't. We can choose to stay where we are because the fear we know is manageable in some way, and we embrace how scared we are because we're used to it.

I'm experiencing this in three new ways right now:

1) I have been really scared to tell my family story in a meaningful way. While I am crystal clear on my position around my family's Nazi past, I had chosen to stay small with it. I knew that my story was worth telling, but I also feared the repercussions of telling it. I was choosing to stay small. Well, last week I chose to tell it as boldly as I knew how, and I burst through that fear.

2) I have wanted to be a writer ever since I was a little girl, and I have feared that I wasn't good enough or that only "fancy people" could be writers and I was too ordinary or weird and that I could never be a real writer. But this year, I vowed that despite my weirdness or my ordinariness, I'd put myself out there and share what I had to say in an intentional way, and that I could accept if people loved it or hated it, but I had to try anyway.

3) I have a beloved friendship that has spanned many years, but I haven't established healthy boundaries; when things have been uncomfortable, I've chosen to stay quiet. Recently, I set a firm boundary with this friend - and my fears came true. They (I'm not going to reveal their gender as part of anonymity) were angry, hurt, and completely withdrew from me. Two things instantly became clear to me: 1) my fears were founded, and that is why I had not established and maintained healthy boundaries; and 2) I am not who I was, and I am okay despite my friend's reaction.

In all three cases, I've been living smaller than I should have been.

I'm not surprised that in the space of a week all of these things happened. I think that I'm ready, and that I've been setting myself up for growth for a long time, and now the seeds that I've planted are growing.

I grew up in fear that if my parents knew who I really was, they wouldn't love me. It was made clear to me that when I stepped outside of family traditions (gender roles, established patterns, political and religious views, etc.) that I was deviant, unacceptable, mistaken, or just plain stupid. While I've been battling that my whole life (the confines never fit me properly, and I struggled against them), it wasn't until three years ago when my father laid it all out for me that I knew that the line had been crossed - that I did indeed have a boundary, and I'd just discovered it. It's funny that he rejected me, but that was the first time I felt free to say "No."

In the three years since, I've done plenty of reflecting (and therapy) and reading around boundaries, relationships, and why I have the thought patterns that I do, and where those thought patterns serve me and don't serve me. I think I've grown more in three years than I'd grown in the 47 years that came before.

So now that growth is building within me, and I'm not the person I was before. The growth has come with strength: I am much clearer about what I want, what I can tolerate, and what I cannot tolerate. I'm much more clear on what makes me happy, and who I am and who I wish to be (and the overlap between these two is much bigger than it was three years ago).

I made a decision to write; I chose to write about my family history. I am strong enough to weather the consequences - if people resonate with my story, or ignore it, it's okay. If my perspective is flawed, I'm willing to listen. If I have wisdom to offer, I'm willing to own it. My fear, which had been holding me back, suddenly seemed small compared to my desire to be my whole self, to share my truth, and to explore the big world to see what was available to me.

I wasn't consciously thinking about my friendship with X. or how that friendship needed to grow with me. The friendship has many beautiful qualities, and I treasure that friendship genuinely. I see the goodness in X. I also am a different size and shape than I was when the friendship started, but in many ways the friendship hasn't changed shape, and so suddenly I am awoken to the realization that I am uncomfortable, so I said, "I'm uncomfortable, and I need to enforce this boundary, which is about me, not you." X. was hurt and insulted. I looked at my heart, my boundary, my intention. I said, "I do not want to hurt or insult you. This is what I need. I still care about you." I don't know what will happen next, but I know that X. has the right to end the friendship, to refuse to honor my boundary, or to accept my boundary. I am not in charge of X.'s decisions, but I'm not afraid of them. I am at peace with me. I hope that X. and I can remain close, but if we can't, I can accept that too, because I can honor myself as much as I honor our friendship, and because I'm not in charge of other peoples' behavior.

I've never thought of myself as a particularly fearful person. At 22 I traveled Europe alone with a backpack and a Eurorail pass, and found that my spirit was adventuresome. I fought the confines of my family's expectations for me, and created a life of my own. I backpack in bear country. I had the courage to get divorced, I had the courage to change careers. I have faced chemo, radiation, and so many surgeries. I thought I wasn't fearful. People have told me for years how brave I am, and I thought I believed them.

But there are layers to people, and my brave exterior hid an interior that was shaking, frightened, and lately I decided that I was sick of it, that it was time to get real. Pretending to be brave, or being brave only some of the time, no longer serves me.

So here I am, with a clarity that I've never felt before.

Buds are beautiful - they are symbols of hope. But I long to burst into full bloom, to explode with color and gorgeous fragrance and the luxurious velvet of petals. I long for the honeybee to pause, to gorge itself with sticky sweet pollen, to rest on me.

I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid that I will not be beautiful enough, that nobody will enjoy my fragrance. I suddenly that bees love all blossoms, and that my destiny was always to blossom, whether I am the kind of flower that people notice with awe, or whether I am a dandelion in the lawn. I don't know yet what my bloom will look like, but I want to know, and I'm willing to try, because the bud is too small and I can't move and it feels tight and painful. If I'm a dandelion, I hope a child clutches me and presents me as a gift to someone loved. If I'm a rose, I hope that a painter captures my elegance for all time. If I'm a wildflower I hope that the breeze caresses me and that the mountain adores me. I don't know what happens next, who I will be.

But I'm not afraid.

Taking the Leap

How do we know when we are ready to jump? Why is it that we can stand on the precipice in fear, our hearts pounding against our ribs, our breath difficult, sweat pooling as we think "I can't. I can't!" and then suddenly - we just do.

I remember when Tessa was quite young, years ago, and we went to a pool with a high diving board. She climbed the ladder, stood at the top, and froze. She really couldn't do it. She tried several times, bowing her head, her cheeks red, as she backed down the ladder to let the next person climb up to take the leap.

But then one day -she trembled at the top, but then she leaped. She splashed. She swam, spluttering and smiling, to the wall, climbed out of the pool, and went straight back in line. She never hesitated again.

I'm interested in understanding that moment between knowing "I can never; it's not possible" and "I'm terrified, but I'm doing it anyway."

***

Some people seem to naturally go for it. Some people are born at ease in the world.

I am not one of those people. I'm awkward and confused and eager to please, quick to wonder if I'm the one at fault. I often think that everyone else has it figured out, and I'm left wondering when I will figure it out.

But then people reveal their truths, and I realize that those at-ease people aren't at-ease at all. Very few people are, actually. Everyone is scurrying around, trying to prove something to themselves, or their fathers, or someone, that they are okay. It's a rare person who radiates joy and peace.

Once I started looking for the "radiating joy and peace and at one with themselves so they weren't afraid to jump" people, I started to see how rare they were.

***

My grandfather - the one in the "Telling" post, the one who was a Nazi soldier - took risks. But he didn't do it with love and joy, and he felt no peace. He plowed through everyone in his path, knocking other people down with insults, money, or power, so that he could get what he wanted. He took financial risks, and he took relationship risks. The financial risks paid off: he died with a lot of money in the bank. The personal risks did not pay off: rather than garnering respect for his professional accomplishments and wealth, he died without a friend. I remember 12 people at his funeral; though he barely knew my ex-husband (they didn't even bother going to our wedding) my ex was a pall-bearer because they didn't have enough people to carry his coffin (and his granddaughters, flesh and blood he'd known all their lives, didn't count, because they were female).

So, he found the courage to move to a foreign country (twice), starting his life over. But I think he was running away as much as anything. I rarely saw joy in him, and I never saw peace.

***

There are a few people that seem to know things like when to jump. Oprah, Barack and Michelle Obama (together and separately), Maya Angelou (rest in peace), Brene Brown, and Cheryl Strayed come to mind. These people draw people from near and far - we're drawn to them; we can't get enough. I think it's because they know how to be their best selves, that they have tapped into something deep within themselves that we really want.

When Oprah says "this I know for sure..." I am sure that she really does know. When Barack said "yes we can" I believed him. When Maya said that she was phenomenal, I didn't have a doubt in my mind.

They are so sure of who they are that they take the leap. They become presidents and poets, writers and wives, philosophers and professors, because they are sure. They just - leap. And we watch them, and we are awed.

But I've read enough of their words, seen enough of their stories, to know that if any of them were reading this, they'd shake their heads and say, "no, no, no."

Just because they do it doesn't mean it is easy.

***

When Tessa stood at the high board, failing and climbing down on multiple occasions, she wasn't failing at all. She was proving that she was bigger than her fear. She measured the size of the fear - height, width, depth - and found it immense. But at one point, one that she knew was coming - for, after all, she didn't climb up just once and change her mind, she climbed up again and again. She must have know, somewhere deep inside, that she COULD do it.

The very first time she was climbing down the ladder, there was still a little voice inside her that said, "I'll try again. I can." She failed many times before she succeeded - but then, I think that's wrong. She never failed. She just wasn't ready. When she was ready, she leaped. The success was always lurking within her.

I know my daughter is brave because she was terrified, but she chose to overcome her fear. She made a conscious decision to do the thing that scared her.

Have I mentioned yet that she is my favorite person, and that while she certainly drives me crazy, she is also incredible, strong, and wise beyond her years?

***

I'm trying to take the leap in several places in my life. I have an old, valued friendship that is falling apart, and I'm taking the leap to bring my authentic self to it even if that means that the friendship is over. I'm trying to write, and to share something true as I write, not just words. And I'm trying to put myself out there to find a partner who makes me laugh and helps me grow and fits me like my favorite pair of jeans.

Not easy.

I'm still at the top of the high board, trembling. No, wait, I'm mid-air! Will I survive the fall? Will the pool embrace me with a laugh, or turn to stone as I land?

My story will unfold. I don't know how it ends. But I know this: pools don't turn to stone. I'm a good swimmer. And the falling, the letting go, comes with some freedom. Maybe it's easier to fall than it is to tremble at the top, questioning every move. Maybe I was made to fall. No, maybe I was made to fly, to splash, to feel the water's embrace.

Aren't we all?

Where are you standing, trembling? Where are you leaping? What is the shape of the water you're diving into?

I think it's time. It's always time. My heart is pounding, my skin is sticky with nervous sweat, and I'm not sure why what looks so easy for everyone else is so hard for me, but I'm doing it anyway.

Ready, set....

Knowing & The Universe

In all of us there is some knowing. There are some things that we are sure of, deep in our bones.

Sometimes these things that we know are wrong. We are taught sometimes that we are worthless, or we think that we're bad at math because our teachers didn't know how to teach us. We sometimes think we're stuck in the lives we live, because we forget how to change. Sometimes the things we know aren't true - the truth simply doesn't reconcile. (Republicans and Democrats cannot both be right about Donald Trump. Somebody has to be wrong, or there has to be some combination of sides being wrong, but it is not possible for two such different views to both be right.)

So, we make mistakes. We stumble. We forget about that still, small voice inside us, and we get lost. We forget our truths, and we head the wrong direction.

But I don't want to talk about that.

I am filled with wonder at the things in my life that I know, deeply and truly, with certainty and peace. Not things like the Pythagorean theorem, or pedagogical methods, but deeper things. Soul things.

I knew when I saw my daughter's face for the first time, damp and squalling, that I loved her so wholly and completely that I would give anything for her well being. That is more true than ever, nearly seventeen years later.

And I knew the moment when I needed a divorce. One minute I did not know, and then the next, I did, not dramatically because of some giant incident, but because in my bones and my soul I knew it was true. I knew I must, I knew I would, and I was filled with the truth of it. I haven't regretted it, even on the worst days, all these years later.

And I knew one day, years into the cancer journey, that I was okay, and that I would be okay. I went from constant fear that Damacles' sword would fall and slice me open, to looking up and seeing sunny, blue skies. I couldn't explain how I knew... I just knew that I was okay. I went from shaking in fear that any day I'd be dead, to feeling fully alive and hopeful. It has been nearly 15 years.

Sometimes we just... know.

I was at Banff National Park in Canada in 2017, taking my annual one week vacation with Tessa, camping and hiking and exploring the sights, when I had one of these epiphanies. I'd helped two fellow campers who had a dead car battery, and they invited me to join them for a glass of wine at their campfire afterwards. We sat around their fire pit, surrounded by trees and stars, and I found out that they were both retired teachers. We spent an hour or two swapping funny teacher stories and discussing the profession, and I felt the lightening bolt hit me: I was supposed to go back to teaching. Given that I didn't know these two very well, I didn't feel up to saying "I've just had a major life changing realization" (I was sure they'd think I was nuts), so when we wrapped up our evening and Tessa and I went back to the tent, I lay there thinking, "Can I make this work?" and plotted a plan of how to make it happen. Far from wifi, I couldn't look anything up, but I figured it would take me a year to renew my certification, that I'd have to quit my job to go back to school... but that it was worth it. I knew.

When I got home from the trip, a few days later, I logged on to the OSPI website to figure out the details of renewing, nervous about how I'd afford the coursework. To my shock, all I had to do was pay a small fee, and I was re-certified. I cried, I was so happy. I quit my job before I had another job lined up (I calculated that I could substitute teach, or do temp work, if worst came to worst), but in the end, I finished up the old job on a Friday and began in my own classroom that Monday. Weirdest yet? I got my old teaching job back. Same school, same classes.

Sometimes, the Universe just really wants us to have something. Teaching has been right, and true, and good for me, and I'm so grateful I found my way back. I knew I was on the right path - I just KNEW - and the Universe stepped up and gave me the opportunity to make it happen with an ease that was shockingly delightful.

It's happening again, and I feel it in my bones.

I know it's time to write (and the NYT said, "we'll publish that!"). It's just time. I'm as ready as I'll ever be.

I know it's time to date, because I know I'm ready to fall in love.

I have been fearful about falling in love. The past few years I've said, "My life is so good - why would I want to mess this up?" but I've known that I needed to figure something out, too. I was fearful because in the past, when I've cared about someone, I've let them walk all over me. I've had flexible (read: not there) boundaries that meant I wasn't getting my needs met. I've been so flexible that I've sent the message "you can behave however you want, and I'll still be here." I never want to feel like that again.

And suddenly, I know that I can hold a boundary, that I can take the risk to speak my truth, and that I can live with the consequences. I know, and I'm sure, and I'm sure that means I'm ready.

When I realized the writing, it was a few days later that the NYT wrote me. (But I had to write them first, of course.) Now I realize that I'm ready to be open to love, so I signed up for a dating app. I don't know if that's the right way to go about it, but I know this: I've changed. Just like that, very gradually then all at once, I'm a new person again, and I'm ready.

I don't know when I'll get published again. I don't know when I'll write something really worth reading again. What I know, though, is that I know that things are new, that I need to write, that I am finally - at long, long last! - ready to fall in love and be loved. And I'm old enough to know that when these feelings come, I should listen. It's time. And I'm not going to fight and scratch and scrape, I'm going to get excited and yell "THANK YOU!" when it comes through. Maybe that thank you will be due tomorrow, or maybe the next day, or the next year, but it's right around the corner. I feel it.

I've got "Defying Gravity" going through my head non-stop. I must not be the only person who has felt like this before if it's already been turned into a song. I'm going to trust it, do the work, and wait for the Universe to work its magic.

When have you known? Did the Universe respond with big messages once you figured it out? I can't be alone in this experience - tell me about your interactions with knowing, too! I look forward to hearing from you.

Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules
Of someone else's game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes and leap!

It's time to try defying gravity
I think I'll try defying gravity
And you can't pull me down

Telling

Today is a proud day for me.

Yesterday, words that I submitted to the New York Times were published in the Sunday Times (online). You can find them here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/18/opinion/letters/influential-books.html
Scroll down towards the bottom to see my words, displayed for all the world to hear in the world's finest newspaper,about my love of Anne Frank and my family's painful past.

I'm proud of this for two reasons.

First, I'm proud because I promised myself that this is the year that I'd get published, that I would put myself out there and make submissions and, well, try to be a writer. This is the year that I told myself that I was tired of the old voice that said I wasn't good enough, that I wasn't that special, that I didn't have what it takes. I went so far as to make a vision board with a focus on writing and telling my truth and being heard; I completed that activity on Saturday. A couple days later I saw the call for responses in the Times, and by Wednesday I'd received an email telling me I'd be in the Sunday online edition. I'm proud because I think if anybody knows what good writing looks like, or what's interesting, it's the Times. I'm proud because only 3% of submissions were accepted, and they chose me. I'm proud because I tried. I'm proud because they picked me. And damnit, if the NYT says I'm good enough to publish, why am I questioning them?! I need to get busy and write more.

But the second reason might even be bigger. I'm proud of this small article because not only did I share my love for Anne Frank, I also told the truth. My family's history is ... is ... what do I even say to finish that sentence? Flawed. Shameful. Imperfect. Embarrassing. Horrifying. Frightening. Which words get close to explaining?

I grew up with whispers about my father's side of the family. My father was born in Germany, and his parents (also of German birth and descent) moved to North America (first Canada, then the U.S.) starting when he was three, just a few years after WWII. My grandparents held their German accents and some traditions (daily sandwiches of dark rye break with deli meats not found at your average Safeway), but they didn't talk much of Germany.

One day in my adolescence, I was going through my grandparents' photo albums (found in the closet of their guest room), and I found pictures of both my grandmother and my grandfather in Hitler Youth uniforms. I found a photograph of my grandfather in his Kreigsmarine uniform, with a Nazi swastika stamped over it as official documentation. My grandmother shrugged off my wide-eyed questions, saying "You don't know what it was like. Hitler was charming and charismatic and he did good things for Germany, getting us out of a bad depression. He made the Autobahn, you know!" My grandfather said that he was in a POW camp for most of the war. My grandmother said she was part of Kristallnacht. She was unapologetic. She said that they were teenagers up to mischief, as if what she had done was T.P. her friend's house, not destroy lives or holy things.

My grandparents did not speak to me - though they lived nearby and our families were in daily contact - for two years when I dated a Jewish man during college. When he and I broke up (I was heartbroken; he broke up with me) they mysteriously welcomed me back into their lives.

My grandparents were hard people. They angered easily, never admitted wrongdoing, and my grandfather yelled and raged at tiny things, and when I was a child he terrified me. They had a local business, and in high school when my friends found out I was related to him, they all had stories about either how much he'd scared them or what a jerk he'd been to them. He believed in leadership through fear, he demanded loyalty and respect. He thought that money meant success. I never understood him.

***

Three years ago, I spoke the truth about my family out loud for the first time, not just whispered to a friend quietly, for the first time. Trump was newly elected, and alt-right groups were rising up and saying "Sieg Trump" and I was terrified. I put a post on Facebook with a link to the news, and said something to the affect of "As the descendant of Germans who fell for Hitler's lies, I'm scared. If you voted for Trump, now is the time to stand up and say "this is NOT what I want" and speak out against racism and anti-Semitism."

My fallout was immediate.

My father, alerted to what I'd written by a family member, called me in a rage. He told me that I didn't know what I was talking about, he yelled, and his final words to me were "I'm ashamed to be your father. I'm ashamed you are my daughter!" before he slammed down the phone.

I know why people don't speak up. People don't tell the whole truth because the truth has consequences. People don't always like the truth. The truth can make people really, really angry.

I haven't spoken to my parents in over three years. (I do not count cards from them that say "We are sorry for your anger" although there have been a few like that. We exchange birthday cards, but do not speak.) I do not know if we'll ever speak again, and of course it hurts. I want to feel loved, cherished, and understood by my family. I want to be united in a quest for truth and justice, for compassion and kindness. I'm not sure if my father disowned me because I spoke a truth about the family that shames him, or because he didn't mind the "Sieg Trump" alt-right and was mad at me for disparaging them, but in the end, as his daughter, that doesn't matter, because he disowned me either way. (To be clear: I had NO idea that my family would respond so negatively to my post. I genuinely believed that speaking up against anti-Semitism was, well, a basic, decent thing to do.)

We don't tell the truth because if we admit our mistakes, people will judge us, and because sometimes what we have said or done is ugly and shameful. We fear that if people knew the worst of us, they'd reject us entirely. We fear that if the family secrets get out, the world will end. Sometimes, we release our secrets, and they slither around like snakes. Sometimes, the snakes bite. My family secret certainly bit me.

But I'm still telling. I started by putting it on Facebook three years ago, and yesterday it was in the New York Times, and now I'm putting it here.

***

After that horrible day on the phone with my father, I did some research. I wanted to know the Truth with a capital T, and I didn't want to know rumors; I wanted facts, not speculation. I made two contacts: first, I contacted a government agency in Germany that releases military records from WWII. Then, I contacted a group (Yad Vashem) that collects the stories and names of those who helped Jews to escape, in a list called The Names of Righteous.

My grandfather was not righteous. He is nowhere on the lists. This is not a surprise, as it wasn't until more than a decade after his death that I first heard a family member say, "you know, I heard he helped people..." He didn't. If he had, we would have talked about that at his funeral, sung his praises. We would not have waited a decade or more to tell the stories, whispered. There is no evidence that he did any such thing. I think it was shame that made the family tell revisionist history. Isn't it easier to imagine our ancestors as heroes?

But I did get a response from the German authorities, who released my grandfather's military records and wrote a letter answering my questions. No, he was never a P.O.W. He was still in service when the war ended. He was stationed at a concentration camp, Bremen-Farge, which was a work camp. It was smaller than the big "famous" camps like Dachau and Auschwitz, with only a couple thousand prisoners, of whom an unknown number died (at minimum 500, but quite easily 1000, up to half of the people imprisoned there), mostly from overwork and starvation. He was a Kriegsmarine, and so most likely he was a guard. At this camp, the guards performed the work of S.S. officers.

It's pretty grim. I see no dignity, no humanity, in these findings. I understand why he wanted to keep these secrets, to move about in society as a regular person, going to restaurants and building a business and enjoying leisure time on his boat. He enjoyed buying my grandmother expensive jewelry. I can see why that is more appealing than reliving what he'd done. I think he carried his shame around him. I think that when he was on his yacht, he was surrounded by the ghosts of men in striped "pajamas" with their bones protruding. I think he wanted to keep it secret for fear of what would unleash if he told.

But I'm telling. I'm shouting it.

After the war, my grandfather would have been 24-25 years old. He had been a student before the war, then he was a low level military guy, and then the war ended and he was released. He and my grandmother married, and lived in a large house, and had a nanny and a maid to help with household tasks. I have to ask: where did he get the money?

I fear that my grandparents lived in a house stolen from Jewish people who may or may not have died in the Holocaust. I fear that they profited enough from war to create a brand new life, away from difficult memories, by stealing the property of others. I don't know. I can only speculate, but I don't know. My grandmother, if alive, is in her late 90s and was deep into her dementia when I last saw her; my grandfather died long ago. I may never know. Whether this fear is correct or not, I know enough, have seen the photos and the papers.

I'm telling.

I'm telling. Snitching? Maybe. But I'm telling the truth. I'm telling the truth because if we don't tell the truth, if we aren't honest with ourselves, then how on earth will we ever learn and grow? If we don't tell the truth, how will we stop others from making the same mistakes?

My family doesn't want me to talk about this. My father is ashamed that I would tell (or so it seems from his words followed by his silence). But today, as we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday, I am quoting the Scripture that Reverend King believed and saying "the truth shall set you free" (John 8:31-32). I believe that Dr. King was correct when he said, “The day we see the truth and cease to speak is the day we begin to die”.

I want to know the truth, and I'm not afraid to tell the truth.

My family members did unspeakable things.

Because of people like those in my family and maybe people in my family, people like Anne Frank died horrific deaths, and those who did not die suffered immeasurably.

My family lives, while others died.

My family has not atoned.

My family lives in shame and silence around this topic.

The Diary of Anne Frank or Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl is the book with the biggest influence on my life, because I saw what was lost when her particular form of genius left the earth, and because "knowing" her through her diary gives me courage to tell the truth. 

I am not afraid of what my family will say: they have already disowned me, what else can they do?  I am afraid of living my life in shame and silence: I think it possible that my grandfather was the most miserable person I have ever known on this earth. I will not be silent. I do not know how to manage the shame of such a legacy. But I do know this:

When I tell the truth, even when my voice is uncertain and quiet, I'm freed. 

I am not the people of my ancestry. My father is not his father. But I believe that when families don't own what has happened - in war, in the Holocaust, or slavery, or any other atrocity - then the pain keeps going, it flows in our veins. Shame is powerful (just ask https://brenebrown.com/). But if we look our shame right in the eye, and speak our truth, doesn't that start to change things?

I don't own what happened before I was born, but neither do I think it has nothing to do with me. I have to choose every day to learn from what happened before, or I will be destined to repeat it, in some form or another.

I am not afraid to tell the truth. You can tell me that I'm a snitch or a tattler because I told, because I drug the family skeleton out of the closet and put it on the front lawn (of the NYT!) for all to see. Fine.

I told the truth, and I stand by it.

And today, I feel a so much more free. Saying the words out loud is powerful. My grandfather wore the swastika; my grandmother reveled in Hitler's charisma. I reject everything that stands for. I choose another path. My truth is not only that I know my family's history, my truth is that I refuse to condone it, that I'm fighting for an entirely different way of being. This is liberating! This - this is joyful! I do not know if I would have had the courage to help Anne. I do not know if I would have snuck bread through the fence, or pretended that a child was my own, or if I would have joined the resistance. But my actions now tell me yes you would. By speaking my truth, I'm saying "my values are bigger than my fear". I am not afraid. I am not afraid to do the right thing, to speak up, even when it's hard. What joy!

I know, that if we're not very, very careful, that ordinary people in a modern era can fall for terrible lies about immigrants, Muslims, Jews, gay people, black people, LatinX people. I know that if we're not very, very careful, it's easy to fall for the idea that the brown people over there stole something, or changed something, and to get scared of anyone who isn't like "us". 

But I believe that we don't have to fall for those lies, because "us" has room for everyone. Because I'd rather be free than die from shame. Because I am creating my own story, not following someone else's.

So I told the NYT. I tattled; I told. Because some stories need telling in order to heal. In telling, we tell the world what matters. In telling, we give away the details about what matters to us. In telling, we are set free.

I'm telling, and today feels like a day that I begin to live in earnest.

Edited to add January 22, 2020:
I included a link to my blog in my comment on the NYT yesterday, in an article by Rivka Weinberg called "The Road to Auschwitz Wasn't Paved with Indifference". I received the following response from someone named Jake Roberts in NYC:

Sir, you could have no idea how impactful your comment is, and how grateful I am to read it. I'm glad I was alone when I saw it, because my eyes filled with tears. Thank you. The comments section is closed, so I hope that by chance you see my acknowledgement here. Your presumption offers me some healing. Your graciousness and kindness has touched me deeply. Thank you.