I didn’t understand Holocaust denial until Oct. 7
My survivor grandmother feared that no one would believe her. Now I know why.
Auschwitz survivor, Zdzislawa Wlodarczyk, walks towards the podium full of portraits at the former Nazi-German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz II-Birkenau during the 78th Anniversary of Auschwitz Liberation on January 27, 2023 in Oswiecim, Poland. Photo by Omar Marques/Getty images
Eric Silberman December 28, 2023
“They ask me to speak in the schools,” my grandmother Manya told me over meringues as we sat in her mirrored dining room. “But who will believe me?”
Her question was figurative. Who would believe that this matronly, big-haired woman with a red lipsticked smile had endured forced labor in a work camp in Poland, dug mass graves and buried still-moving bodies with bloody earth, escaped the burning camp through a crevice in her barrack’s roof, and spent a year hiding underground in a hole so small that if one of the four there wanted to turn, they all had to turn?
My grandmother’s question was also literal. Who would believe that she had survived the Holocaust when it was just denied by an antisemitic head of state and by a tenured university professor down the street?
What was the point of baring her soul and then spending the night swimming in nightmares? Who would believe her anyway?
When I had this conversation with my grandmother in 2009, her fears of denial seemed unfounded. Yes, there were Holocaust deniers, but they were outliers. Besides, a logical solution to denial seemed to be more education. With enough proof, I thought, the skeptics my grandmother feared so deeply would have to acknowledge the truth. Amid so much evidence, how could anyone have the gall to deny?
Now, in the aftermath of Oct. 7, I finally get it. My grandmother was not paranoid; her cynicism was exactly right. No proof of Jewish suffering will ever be enough to quash denial — so perhaps, it’s time we stop trying to explain ourselves.
There was a time when my grandmother was optimistic about people’s good nature. A righteous Polish-Catholic woman, Marysia, had risked her life to hide Manya in that underground hole, saving her life and the lives of three other Jews. After the war, Marysia immigrated to Canada and my grandmother to Chicago yet the two remained close, and I grew up knowing Marysia like family. She was humble, but her unpretentious nature did not diminish the magnitude of what she had done.
My grandmother and the other Holocaust survivors built monuments and museums, published books and recorded testimony. They recounted their traumatic memories, displayed pictures of their slaughtered relatives alongside piles of shoes, eyeglasses and hair all in an effort so that all people — not just Jews — would understand what they had endured. By sharing their horrors, they hoped the same would never happen again. They hoped that Jew-hatred would be eradicated.
Even as late-in-life depression precipitated her skepticism about the good in humanity, I remained hopeful. I memorized the details of my grandparents’ narrow escapes from the war and interviewed Manya extensively about her experiences. In recent years, I spoke to public middle school students about the Holocaust, defying my grandmother’s hardened outlook, confident that they would, in fact, believe what had happened. Perhaps someone in the crowd was a young Marysia, waiting for her cue to stand up and act against the tides of hatred.
There was a time when I was optimistic. But since Oct. 7, I am cynical.
What was the point of telling the world of the horrors of the Holocaust? So that my colleagues could engage in Holocaust inversion, calling Israelis the Nazis of the 21st century?
What was the point of encouraging survivors to bare their souls? So that people who supposedly care for justice could justify the murder of our Jewish brothers and sisters in Israel, calling for further “solution” and “revolution”?
What was the point of survivors reprising their traumatic memories? So that friends could stay silent when our intergenerational traumas are reawakened by this tragedy?
So that protesters could flippantly tell us to go back to Poland?
So that we could be spat on and told that “Hitler should have finished the job”? So that our nation’s most prominent Holocaust memorial could be considered a launching ground for protests?
What now is the point of publicizing devastating images of the lifeless bodies and bloodied beds of Oct. 7?
What now is the point of blasting graphic testimonies of sexual assault until we ourselves are numb to these horrors, but yet the intended audience remains heartless and irreverent?
What is the point of putting up posters of kidnapped children when people gleefully tear them down and demand more proof? So that our witnesses could be mocked and their narratives twisted?
Where are the Marysias of the 21st century? A recent social media campaign had Jews asking, “Would you hide me?” Forget hiding me — would you even ask me how I’m doing?
My grandmother Manya would remind me of an experience she had visiting an oral surgeon. As she reclined in the chair, the surgeon noticed her accent and correctly assumed she was a Holocaust survivor. “I’m so interested to know,” he asked. “What is your story?”
“This is not a story,” she replied, incredulous. “This is my life.”
For us, this is not a story. This is our lives.
This moment makes it clear that my grandmother was right. As bearers of trauma, it cannot be our primary responsibility to educate the masses in whom Jew-hatred was never really eradicated, not about the Holocaust, and not about the horrors of Oct. 7. We cannot expend ourselves to persuade the unconvincible. We cannot agonize over our unacknowledged suffering, just like we cannot apologize for living.
That is not to say that, as a grandson of Holocaust survivors, I will keep quiet. I will always work to keep alive my grandparents’ memories, and my own. But they will remain, primarily, for me and my Jewish community. Just like I will tell them about the Holocaust, one day I will tell my children how it felt to be a Jew on Oct. 7 and in the months that followed. As my grandparents did for me, I will always practice resilience for my family and for my own community.
Throughout history, we Jews have been ghettoized, demonized, and told we are vermin in the same breath that we clandestinely run society. We have survived not because we have convinced any others of our worth, but rather thanks to our values. Like the Holocaust survivors, we will continue to survive, each and every day.
But since we alone will hold our memories sacred, perhaps we should save ourselves the heartbreak of trying, trying, trying to get anyone else to listen. Maybe it is time to keep our memories, monuments and messages to ourselves.
For who else will believe us anyway?
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