And the truth is, there is no day you find out.
You learn it in bits and pieces, scattered across your lifetime.
The first time you hear about places we can no longer visit or ceremonies we can no longer perform, you’re too young to remember. It is always part of you. It feels more like a fantasy world then a piece of history you’ve lost.
One day, you are researching family history. So many of the branches of your family tree get suddenly cut off. You start to understand what that means.
One day, you are reading your great-great-grandmother’s story’s. You read about her sister who moved east when your great-great-grandmother moved west, and the day that the letters stopped coming. You know what it means, even before you look up the name of the city she moved to, and what happened to it.
(You are one of the lucky ones. The trauma is far enough back that you weren’t raised in its immediate shadow.)
One day, you learn about the Yizkor book, the collected memories about the inhabitants of a village that no longer exists, which talks about your family.
(You are one of the lucky ones. So many villages don’t have Yizkor books, because there was no one left alive who remembered them.)
One day, you visit what used to be one of the cultural centers of your people. Now, it’s a museum to what was destroyed.
(It’s one of the lucky places. So many of the memories have been paved over and erased.)
One day, “the last Jew alive in [country where hundreds of thousands of Jews once lived]” stops being a shocking statement, and becomes a genre.
(You are one of the lucky ones. You’ve never been the last.)
There is no one time your culture was violently destroyed. It happened over and over again, across continents and millenia. The survivors flee, and hope they will have a few generations before the place they flee to is also destroyed.
(You are one of the lucky ones. You’ve never had to flee.)
Your culture is still here, because you are still here. What you have is the fragments of a thousand burned texts and demolished buildings and extinct dialects, but it is real. It is alive. Multiple militaries and paramilitary organizations are actively trying to kill it.
(You are one of the lucky ones. You don’t live in their direct line of fire.)
You grow up being told it’s better now. People don’t hate you for being different; not like they used to. One day, you realize their acceptance is dependent on them not having to think about how different you are.
(You are one of the lucky ones. It is possible for you to pretend.)
You speak your language, and you are speaking for everyone who was murdered for speaking it. You study your texts, and your are studying for everyone who was murdered for studying them. You celebrate your holidays, and you are celebrating for everyone who was murdered for celebrating them. You live your life, and you are living for everyone who was murdered.
(You are one of the lucky ones. You are able to speak, and study, and celebrate, and live.)
Nothing you do will ever be fully for yourself. You are a memorial to everything that was lost. You are everything that has been salvaged. You are the hope that something can be rebuilt.
(You are one of the lucky ones. You can only begin to understand how much luck was required for you to exist.)