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Mar. 14th, 2007 07:35 pmCelebrations like Women's History Month help us forget things we should never forget. I don't want to forget the Shoah.
Yom haShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) is in about a month, and around then lots of people will focus on the horror of it and the sheer number of Jewish, Romany and other lives that were snuffed out long before they had fulfilled their potential or realised their dreams. Today I want to remember the Shoah from a slightly different direction.
Since the thirteenth century, Jewish communties have put together Yizkor books. It's linked to our religious practices and the extent of our losses over the centuries. Yizkor books help us remember those of our number who have been killed simply because they were Jewish.
Not all communities have them. Not all massacres are remembered. Not all massacres have survivors to compile the memories. The size and scale of the dead listed in Yizkor books make it easy to forget that each and every name in the books belonged to an individual who loved and lived and possibly made bad jokes.
Today I'm remembering the women in Yizkor books. Some of them had vibrant families. Some lived alone. Some never moved more than five miles from where they were born and some travelled across the world. Some played politics. Some were very traditional. Some were religious and others were atheist or secular. Some were city girls and some were peasants. Some ran family business and some were teenagers, on the verge of deciding where their lives would take them. Far too many were children.
These women have been caught up in the heap of the dead, their individuality forgotten by almost all of us.
You can find a collection of Yizkor books online here. These lists don't help bring back the lives that are gone, all they can do is help us start to remember. After the Yizkor book, it's important to look one step further, at research about communities and people within them. Semi-fictional books such as Arnold Zable's Jewels and Ashes (about Bialystock, and a book that makes me cry because these are the relatives and relatives of relatives who didn't make it out of Poland before World War II) or Yaffa Eliach's There Once was a World which takes readers through the 900 year history of the shtetl of Eishyshock. Most of these books focus more on the men of the communities than the women, but women are there in photos, in cameos and occasionally in startling focus. Starting from books of memory, we can begin to see the lives of those who are gone.
Yom haShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) is in about a month, and around then lots of people will focus on the horror of it and the sheer number of Jewish, Romany and other lives that were snuffed out long before they had fulfilled their potential or realised their dreams. Today I want to remember the Shoah from a slightly different direction.
Since the thirteenth century, Jewish communties have put together Yizkor books. It's linked to our religious practices and the extent of our losses over the centuries. Yizkor books help us remember those of our number who have been killed simply because they were Jewish.
Not all communities have them. Not all massacres are remembered. Not all massacres have survivors to compile the memories. The size and scale of the dead listed in Yizkor books make it easy to forget that each and every name in the books belonged to an individual who loved and lived and possibly made bad jokes.
Today I'm remembering the women in Yizkor books. Some of them had vibrant families. Some lived alone. Some never moved more than five miles from where they were born and some travelled across the world. Some played politics. Some were very traditional. Some were religious and others were atheist or secular. Some were city girls and some were peasants. Some ran family business and some were teenagers, on the verge of deciding where their lives would take them. Far too many were children.
These women have been caught up in the heap of the dead, their individuality forgotten by almost all of us.
You can find a collection of Yizkor books online here. These lists don't help bring back the lives that are gone, all they can do is help us start to remember. After the Yizkor book, it's important to look one step further, at research about communities and people within them. Semi-fictional books such as Arnold Zable's Jewels and Ashes (about Bialystock, and a book that makes me cry because these are the relatives and relatives of relatives who didn't make it out of Poland before World War II) or Yaffa Eliach's There Once was a World which takes readers through the 900 year history of the shtetl of Eishyshock. Most of these books focus more on the men of the communities than the women, but women are there in photos, in cameos and occasionally in startling focus. Starting from books of memory, we can begin to see the lives of those who are gone.