Mondays with Mike: We cannot “Just Get Over It!”

Hi all. Mike here. We just had a joyous weekend spending time with our friends Pick and Hank, who visited from Washington, D.C. Or more specifically, from Alexandria, Virginia. We’ve posted more than once about this dynamic duo. It’s not a stretch to say that at this point, we’re all like family–only better, because we’re not family. 

That’s Hank on the left, me, Pick, and Beth during a vacation we took together in New Orleans.

We are fortunate people, which is something Hank understands perhaps better than anyone. His parents outlived their time in concentration camps during WWII. But his mother and father didn’t live long afterward–and that had everything to do with their hellish time at the hands of the Nazis. 

Apart from their own suffering and Hank being deprived of his parents at a very young age,  Hank recently had an encounter that reminded me that anyone’s suffering is all of our business, and anyone’s suffering should be understood as our own. 

Hank wrote–movingly and courageously and hauntingly–about this encounter. And he generously agreed to our sharing his writing with Safe & Sound readers. With that, I give you the words of our friend Henry Londner.

I Cannot “Just Get Over It!”

Yesterday, upon learning that I would not be keen on taking a river cruise through Germany and Austria, someone said to me “The Holocaust was 75 years ago. Why don’t you just get over it?” Well, I cannot “just get over it.”

My grandparents, many aunts and uncles, and even first cousins, along with 6 million other Jews were gassed, then mutilated to remove their gold teeth and fillings, and finally incinerated.

So, I cannot “just get over it.”

I never knew the unconditional love of grandparents that almost everyone I know experienced. I know I longed for it too and still do. So, I cannot “just get over it.”

I grew up in a community of walking wounded; Holocaust survivors living with debilitating physical ailments that often shortened their lives and PTSD so severe that some ended up taking their own lives years after the war.

So, I cannot “just get over it.”

My own parents were among those whose lives were cut short, leaving me an orphan at the age of 13 and forever longing for the unconditional love of parents. Even at 66, sometimes I still feel like a motherless child, so I cannot “just get over it.”

Other children of Holocaust survivors and I suffer from PTSD even if we were born after the horrors. In my happiest times, there is a cloud over me that I cannot dispel. I can never just “let loose.”

So, I cannot “just get over it.”

It is difficult for me to trust anyone completely, and even while making progress I am again set back by the resurgence of hate that is all around us.

So, I cannot “just get over it.”

Even though I was born after the Holocaust, I sometimes feel survivors’ guilt and even guilt that the wonderful life I have is built upon the bones of the millions whose lives were cut short.

So, I cannot “just get over it.”

I know the Germany and Austria of today are not the same, and I even have friends who hail from these places. and yet, I still cannot “just get over it.”

Hearing these words from someone I have known nearly half my life, and knowing that in an instant they changed our relationship irrevocably is just one last thing — I cannot “just get over it.”