damn elie weisel

i picked up bits and pieces of an npr radio special with elie weisel on the holocaust as i was in and out of the car on my way home tonight. it motivated me to make sure i remember to take cds with me in the car tomorrow so i do not turn on the radio.

one part i heard was about an older man who survived the holocaust but witnessed many adult jews being lined up in front of pits and shot down into them as well as children and babies being burned alive in ditches so as to save bullets. after he made it out, he wanted to tell people what he had seen and people sooooo did not want to hear about it. on the global horror scale, my son's stillbirth doesn't exactly compare to the whole freaking holocaust, but i understand the frustration of no one wanting to hear about the horror others have experienced.

in another part of the interview, weisel talked about the nazi officers who, when put on trial after the war, said, hey, i didn't hate the jews personally, i just followed orders. his point was that these officers had a choice; if they weren't comfortable carrying out orders to kill jews, they had the option of being reassigned. in his opinion the first moral value was to save lives. i started to bawl in the car. and i apologized to hans, for losing faith in his existence at the end of my pregnancy, and for not going to the hospital when i felt something was wrong the last time. he may have already been dead, or they may not have been able to save him, but he deserved my best effort to save his life, as much effort as i made the whole rest of the pregnancy.

when i got home i had a beautiful and sweet and powerful mother's day card from jen and laine, fellow parents of dead children. as wonderful as it was, it opened me the rest of the way up, and i sobbed for a long time. i would prefer coming home to hans to getting a card, dammit. it's a good thing i'm going to the therapist tomorrow.

thankfully, justin's on his way home. i gotta go cook supper.