Ilana Lindenblatt

They weren't skinny enough, one said. And there was something about that moment, its excruciating discomfort, following three hours and 15 minutes of horror enrichment, that I began to wonder, what am I doing here? Don't I know enough about this? Doesn't further engagement with the Holocaust threaten to deform me? Aren't I deformed enough by it already?

They weren't skinny enough, one said. And there was something about that moment, its excruciating discomfort, following three hours and 15 minutes of horror enrichment, that I began to wonder, what am I doing here? Don't I know enough about this? Doesn't further engagement with the Holocaust threaten to deform me? Aren't I deformed enough by it already?

What sort of inertia of inevitability brought me along to Schindler's List? Was this what counted for escape velocity? Crossing oceans to get away from Brooklyn only to end up right where my mother wanted me to be, which was a student at an Israeli university using my recreation time to watch Holocaust movies?

What sort of inertia of inevitability brought me along to Schindler's List? Was this what counted for escape velocity? Crossing oceans to get away from Brooklyn only to end up right where my mother wanted me to be, which was a student at an Israeli university using my recreation time to watch Holocaust movies?

I realized, suddenly, that there was no future in which I would know enough Holocaust to move on from it. What the education was asking of me was to not move on. Not ever. And just like that, I thought... never again. No, I would survive my education and try to live like a real American, to enjoy the life that liberation had granted me, to see what that was like. And I did.

I realized, suddenly, that there was no future in which I would know enough Holocaust to move on from it. What the education was asking of me was to not move on. Not ever. And just like that, I thought... never again. No, I would survive my education and try to live like a real American, to enjoy the life that liberation had granted me, to see what that was like. And I did.

I attended college, where I placed out of language with all the Hebrew I knew and didn't take one Jewish history class. I drank Coca-Cola and ate hot dogs and went to the movies and the beach and fell in love and dreamed of my unlimited future.

I attended college, where I placed out of language with all the Hebrew I knew and didn't take one Jewish history class. I drank Coca-Cola and ate hot dogs and went to the movies and the beach and fell in love and dreamed of my unlimited future.

I became a writer and turned down most of the Jewish assignments, daring anyone to tell me that it was my obligation to write about anything I didn't want to write about. I never saw a Holocaust movie again because no matter how much they were called triumphant, they are not so triumphant that they take place in a world where the Holocaust didn't happen.

I became a writer and turned down most of the Jewish assignments, daring anyone to tell me that it was my obligation to write about anything I didn't want to write about. I never saw a Holocaust movie again because no matter how much they were called triumphant, they are not so triumphant that they take place in a world where the Holocaust didn't happen.

And exactly how triumphant can you be inside the Holocaust? Not very. I was sent on stories to Europe, to Budapest, even to the very square mile where the Lindenblats fought for their survival. I wasn't writing about any of the atrocities that happened in that city. I didn't visit any of their six memorials to the Holocaust. I was writing about Antonio Banderas. We ate at the Four Seasons.

And exactly how triumphant can you be inside the Holocaust? Not very. I was sent on stories to Europe, to Budapest, even to the very square mile where the Lindenblats fought for their survival. I wasn't writing about any of the atrocities that happened in that city. I didn't visit any of their six memorials to the Holocaust. I was writing about Antonio Banderas. We ate at the Four Seasons.

I walked along the Danube. I had done it. I had survived the harrowing past and its equally toxic undertow, which had consumed so many of the people around me. Now, all these years later, after I hung up with Alana, I walked around Covent Garden, unable to sleep, a panic welling inside me. I had not told Mr. Lindenblatt's story, the thing he asked me for forever, and now he was dying.

I walked along the Danube. I had done it. I had survived the harrowing past and its equally toxic undertow, which had consumed so many of the people around me. Now, all these years later, after I hung up with Alana, I walked around Covent Garden, unable to sleep, a panic welling inside me. I had not told Mr. Lindenblatt's story, the thing he asked me for forever, and now he was dying.

All the Holocaust survivors were dying. All the Holocaust survivors were dying, and at home in New York, spray-painted swastikas had been showing up all over town, and my nephews had stopped wearing their yarmulkes.

All the Holocaust survivors were dying. All the Holocaust survivors were dying, and at home in New York, spray-painted swastikas had been showing up all over town, and my nephews had stopped wearing their yarmulkes.

Yes, all the Holocaust survivors were dying, and we were locked in debates over whether a salute given by a newly installed government official was a Nazi dog whistle or a Nazi Nazi whistle, or maybe just an awkward wave or a weird shout-out to his buds.

Yes, all the Holocaust survivors were dying, and we were locked in debates over whether a salute given by a newly installed government official was a Nazi dog whistle or a Nazi Nazi whistle, or maybe just an awkward wave or a weird shout-out to his buds.

What would become of stories like Mr. Lindenblatt's if the generation of mine that was supposed to inherit them had taken the privilege that came with another generation's survival and decided not to listen? What would happen to these stories when there was no one left to tell them? Mr. Lindenblatt was 87 that night I called Alana from London.

What would become of stories like Mr. Lindenblatt's if the generation of mine that was supposed to inherit them had taken the privilege that came with another generation's survival and decided not to listen? What would happen to these stories when there was no one left to tell them? Mr. Lindenblatt was 87 that night I called Alana from London.