Chilling Echoes of the Past

The first Holocaust survivor I ever met was the man who has been my life partner for the past several years. The first thing that struck me about Gidon Lev was his sparkling blue eyes. The second thing that struck me was that those eyes had looked into the eyes of Nazis. It sent a shiver through me. It was as if time had collapsed, as if Gidon had stepped out of a black-and-white photo and into a different timeline – mine.

Gidon was born in 1935 in former Czechoslovakia. In 1938, his family fled to Prague. In December of 1941, Gidon, his mother, father, and grandfather were deported to Theresienstadt. Gidon spent four long years in the concentration camp, from the ages of six to ten. After liberation, he discovered that his father, grandfathers, grandmothers, and great-grandparents had all been murdered. In all, Gidon lost twenty-six family members. Only he and his mother Doris survived. 

When Gidon’s family fled in 1938, they hired a mover from Karlovy Vary to bring their belongings to them in Prague. The mover simply never showed up. But after the war, Doris looked him up. A policeman in tow, she managed to get most of her things back. Including a now tattered leather folder of family pictures, some dating back to the turn of the century. By this miracle, Gidon can look at the faces of the family he lost.

When he tells his story, the photo Gidon focuses on the most is dated 1934. In it, his mother, father, grandfather, and great-grandmother stroll along a street in Karlovy Vary (Karlsbad) in former Czechoslovakia. Gidon always points out how, in this photo, he is also present – in his mother’s tummy! Gidon uses this photo to illustrate how strange it is to him today that while by 1934, Hitler had already risen to power –  here his family is, taking a Sunday stroll without a care in the world! How could they be so casual and carefree?

I try to tell Gidon that maybe they were anxious; how can a photo of a Sunday stroll reveal that? And – leaving is not so easy! And – how could they possibly have imagined that four years after this photo was snapped, they would be on the run and that eleven years after that, three of the four people in the photo would have been murdered? It was unthinkable. Germany, they might have thought, was far enough away. They would be okay.

Now, it was December 2024, and Gidon and I were in Berlin for a tour to promote our new book, Let’s Make Things Better: A Holocaust Survivor’s Message of Hope and Celebration of Life.

“I have talked to my friends and family. Maybe it’s time to leave.”

I stared at a woman who had attended the signing at the Jewish Community Center in Berlin in utter disbelief. This could not be happening. The timeline was converging. None of this could be happening. 

The organizer explained apologetically that the book signing was thinly populated due to its venue. Since October 7th, events at the Jewish Community Center had been anemic; people were afraid to come. Outside, two armed guards stood sentry in the freezing cold. In the first six months of 2024 alone, I learned, antisemitic hate crimes in Berlin exceeded the total number of 2023

A month earlier, Gidon and I had prepared ourselves for a Zoom interview with a journalist from the Times of London. The publicity blitz for our book was off with a bang. Our agent was very excited. Gidon wanted to look his best. He was freshly shaved and had picked out his best clothes to wear. The journalist was late. Our publicist, in on the call, made small talk with us. Five minutes passed, then ten.

When our publicist asked us if any questions were out of bounds a few days earlier, I said we would prefer to focus on our book, not the October 7th war. I had heard tales of Israeli and diaspora Jewish writers and artists being ambushed with “good Jew/bad Jew” questions. The journalist pushed back. They only had one question about the war, they explained: What did Gidon think of the conduct of the IDF? I told our publicist that we would rather focus on the book, but I offered to answer that question in writing. With some time and space to be articulate, I thought, I could politely but firmly explain how grossly inappropriate the question was – because it had nothing to do with our book.

After fifteen minutes of awkward waiting, the publicist muted the sound on Zoom and called the Times of London. We saw her nod soberly and frown. A moment later, she returned and explained, pityingly, that the interview had been canceled. Gidon said nothing. He changed back into his regular clothes and switched on the TV. I seethed with fury.  How dare this journalist stand up an eighty-nine-year-old Holocaust survivor?!

A month later, the first stop on our book tour was Amsterdam, where a scant two weeks earlier, a “Jew hunt” had happened. For security, our Dutch publicist registered us at our hotel under a different name.

On our first publicity day in Amsterdam, a group of Dutch social media influencers canceled the planned photo opp with Gidon without notice. Ditto an interview scheduled for that afternoon with De Telegraaf. Our publicist frowned. “This makes me sad,” she said.

Gidon and I took advantage of the unplanned free time to visit the Anne Frank House. I seethed. In the home of arguably the world’s most famous victim of the Holocaust, also a child at the time, a contemporary child survivor was not fit to be interviewed because he is Israeli – and this on the heels of a violent pogrom. We have more social media followers than De Telegraaf has readers, I thought vengefully. Not a good look for them to cancel. But I bit my tongue. Instead, I wrote the journalist an even-toned email asking him to reconsider. He never replied.

While we were in Berlin, a documentary film crew followed us around for a short documentary that will air in Germany for International Holocaust Remembrance Day this January. We went to the Holocaust Memorial on Cora-Berliner-Straße in the middle of Berlin. It was 2C, and we shivered. As we walked through the imposing memorial, with great slabs of stone rising all around us, taking us deeper and deeper into the horror, I remarked to Gidon that all the slabs looked alike.

“No, they don’t,” Gidon pointed out. See that one? It’s at a slightly different angle. That one too, see? They are similar but not exactly the same.“

As usual, Gidon was right.