Tonight begins Holocaust Memorial day here in Israel.
My Oma and Opa (my grandparents) were hidden during the Holocaust in Holland.
My biological Dad was separated from his parents and was adopted by by a Dutch family. Amazingly he passed as Dutch and not Jewish although I’ve heard stories of close very calls with brushes with the Nazis almost finding out that my Dad was Jewish.
The family that adopted my Dad during the war was just recognized as an official righteous gentile family a few years back by Yad Vashem, something I am very proud of.
When my Dad and his parents were re-united after the war, my Dad who was a young boy at the time didn’t even believe that my Oma and Opa (his parents) were his real parents. He had forgotten about them.
The three of them survived but I’m sure that the emotional scars never really went away.
My biological Dad died a couple months before I was born in 1973 before I ever got to see or meet him. I think he had a lot of weight on his shoulders after all he had been through at such a young age.
Let’s remember never to forget. We don’t need to forgive, but let’s never forget!!
-Yoav Kaufman