They say the second generation after a traumatic event actually has a kind of post-traumatic stress syndrome. My mother fits the bill - nightmares, guilt, acting from obligation, extreme dedication to the group. But what about the third generation? Are we supposed to be rid of it? I'm definitely not.
Last night, Larry and I came home to find all three of our kids cuddling on the couch with my parents. It was really sweet. Eli, who had a fever, was on my Dad's lap, and they were both draped in our couch blanket. Dylan was reading a book I'd never seen to my mom and Joey had her head in my mother's lap, listening. I noticed it was a sort of graphic novel. Then I realized it was some book about the Holocaust. Dylan is 7 and Joey is 4. They were reading about a boy whose parents had pushed him into a closet. The story followed the boy's narrow escpae from the Nazis while hiding in this closet. That sounds pretty intense for a 7 year old, when I think about it. They don't even start Holocaust education in Hebrew School until 4th grade.
Larry was upset - he thought the kids were too young. But they didn't seem upset; in fact, they seem interested. It is certainly too young for gory details. But is there an age that is too young to know about this world-changing event, an event that two of their great-grandparents survived? Great-grandparents they know, by the way, not just some dusty old pictures with hollow eyes and no smiles, people they love.
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