world war ii

Would You Resist?

I am a rabbi. I am 46 years old. I am also the granddaughter and grand-niece of Germans who were ...

A Painting of Pain & The Responsibility of Remembrance

As we prepare to commemorate Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, I’ve been thinking about my father- in- law, Leon Schipper, ...

Good Decisions, Bad Consequences

This summer my family and I visited one of my great-uncles. I’m not sure exactly how old he is, but ...

A Book and Its Translators

It was a freezing afternoon outside Warsaw in March 2012, and I was sitting in a cramped hut listening to ...

The Legacy of Lee Lorch

“In the Nazi concentration camps of Germany people had seen the end results of racism.”- Lee Lorch to New York ...

Putting People in Boxes – Literally

I’d like to preface today’s post by saying that while I *wish* this were some sort of April Fool’s Day ...

Deciding to Forgo Research

One of the great pleasures of writing for me is researching historical events and details that help me understand and ...

What Does a Concentration Camp Look Like?

What does a concentration camp look like?Does it look like this?(Set aside for a moment the fact that it’s a ...

The Presence of the Past

In my Paris neighborhood, I am discovering France’s historic fear of outsiders. Indifference to the fate of those not inside ...

Remembering the Camondos

Now that I live part-time in Paris, I explore the city’s complex and sometimes disturbing relationship to toward its Jewish ...