Larry Bennett retweetledi
If you walk through an Israeli cemetery, you’ll notice something different.
On the graves of Holocaust survivors, below their own names, there are often lists of others. These are their parents, brothers, and sisters who were murdered by the Nazis, etched into the stone because they never received a grave of their own.
My grandparents’ headstones bear their names, and in their case as well, the slabs below carry the names of their siblings who were murdered in the Holocaust and denied a final resting place.
For survivors, their own grave became a memorial for an entire family wiped out.
It is a way to defy the Nazis’ attempt to erase them from history. It gives us, the grandchildren, a physical place to light a candle and say: “You existed. You are part of us.”
But there are those with no grave and no name carved into stone, because no one was left to write their names.
Our job is to be their memory. We remember those who have a name on a stone, and those who do not.
May their memories be a blessing.
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