Ilana Lindenblatt

Was I supposed to do more than walk around unafraid and think to stop sometimes and tilt my head up toward the sun? And what do you think it means that last night I dreamed I was at Auschwitz? Bodies piling up all around me. And I was doing a radio show, but I wasn't sure if I was doing it to entertain the inmates or to work for the Nazis. Was it even being broadcast to the world?

Was I supposed to do more than walk around unafraid and think to stop sometimes and tilt my head up toward the sun? And what do you think it means that last night I dreamed I was at Auschwitz? Bodies piling up all around me. And I was doing a radio show, but I wasn't sure if I was doing it to entertain the inmates or to work for the Nazis. Was it even being broadcast to the world?

How have I fallen into this trap again? A trap I knew well to avoid and have been successfully doing so for decades. And does a life have to be meaningful? Can't it just be a life? And why can't I bring myself to ask you any of these questions?

How have I fallen into this trap again? A trap I knew well to avoid and have been successfully doing so for decades. And does a life have to be meaningful? Can't it just be a life? And why can't I bring myself to ask you any of these questions?

Even though you've made it so easy to talk to you, even though you sit there blinking warmly, patiently welcoming my questions, even though I know you've been through so much worse than my dumb questions, is it because I can't bear any of the answers? See? This is what I meant by inevitabilities.

Even though you've made it so easy to talk to you, even though you sit there blinking warmly, patiently welcoming my questions, even though I know you've been through so much worse than my dumb questions, is it because I can't bear any of the answers? See? This is what I meant by inevitabilities.

It was inevitable that I would end up once again so enmeshed in the Holocaust that these questions would haunt me so much that just this morning I woke up thinking about Hitler, wondering almost casually about his paintings. What was his medium, oils or watercolor?

It was inevitable that I would end up once again so enmeshed in the Holocaust that these questions would haunt me so much that just this morning I woke up thinking about Hitler, wondering almost casually about his paintings. What was his medium, oils or watercolor?

It was inevitable to end up here, distraught and angry over a bubbling state of hatred and denial and dismissal that I cannot change, nor understand even, and somehow must withstand.

It was inevitable to end up here, distraught and angry over a bubbling state of hatred and denial and dismissal that I cannot change, nor understand even, and somehow must withstand.

It was even inevitable that I would be so resistant to this article that by the time I thought to write it, the lessons of my youth, those poor people who lectured me about never forgetting the Holocaust and whom I kicked in the teeth by explaining that my own survival was contingent on never remembering, would be borne out.

It was even inevitable that I would be so resistant to this article that by the time I thought to write it, the lessons of my youth, those poor people who lectured me about never forgetting the Holocaust and whom I kicked in the teeth by explaining that my own survival was contingent on never remembering, would be borne out.

It was inevitable that I would live to understand that I once upon a time had the privilege to say that I was tired of the Holocaust. I was over it. I didn't want to hear about it.

It was inevitable that I would live to understand that I once upon a time had the privilege to say that I was tired of the Holocaust. I was over it. I didn't want to hear about it.

And, of course, there is the biggest inevitability, the only one I had control over, that I somehow ended up in a room full of Holocaust survivors, trying to hold in my head a shard of the amount of the pain that existed there. I am sorry for this. I am sorry to my grandparents for not asking more or reassuring them, even though they never asked me to.

And, of course, there is the biggest inevitability, the only one I had control over, that I somehow ended up in a room full of Holocaust survivors, trying to hold in my head a shard of the amount of the pain that existed there. I am sorry for this. I am sorry to my grandparents for not asking more or reassuring them, even though they never asked me to.

I am sorry that I'm mean about my high school when they were just trying to make sure I understood. I am sorry I didn't freeze in awe. I am sorry I haven't been to Poland. I am sorry for the time on the summer program I went to in Israel that I faked being sick so I wouldn't have to go to Yad Vashem, though I am somehow even sorrier that I went years later.

I am sorry that I'm mean about my high school when they were just trying to make sure I understood. I am sorry I didn't freeze in awe. I am sorry I haven't been to Poland. I am sorry for the time on the summer program I went to in Israel that I faked being sick so I wouldn't have to go to Yad Vashem, though I am somehow even sorrier that I went years later.

I am sorry I leave the room for Yuzkor, the memorial prayer at Yom Kippur, and stand in the hall and talk to people until someone hushes us, and I go back inside when it is mercifully finished. I am sorry to Mr. Lyndon Blatt for not telling his story sooner. But I have to be honest, I'm also sorry for telling it.

I am sorry I leave the room for Yuzkor, the memorial prayer at Yom Kippur, and stand in the hall and talk to people until someone hushes us, and I go back inside when it is mercifully finished. I am sorry to Mr. Lyndon Blatt for not telling his story sooner. But I have to be honest, I'm also sorry for telling it.