Post by EmberRoze on Dec 2, 2008 23:10:30 GMT -6
Dear Mrs. Gut-Opdyke,
The worn copy of your memoir lies on my desk, beckoning to be read once more. The spine is creased to perforation, pages loosen with time and fall free of the binding, but the story you tell draws me back time and time again. In my lifetime, no one person has inspired me as much as you. You persevered through so much during the second world war, and came out with an unimaginable barrier of strength. Beyond learning to live outside of fear, and living without secrets, somehow, you came out with this memoir- these personal recollections of a time I can't even begin to comprehend-, and you gave it to the world. You have blessed me and countless others with a gift for which we will never be able to thank you, yet of a scope we may never understand.
There is so much I wish I could tell you; there is more I can't even form into a comprehensive thought. I do know, however, in the four years since I originally read In My Hands, its words have haunted me. What you told has been a constant reminder about how little I need to worry about my life. Everything I consider to be a large problem is truly insubstantial. While I read, you seemed to reach out through the very pages and extend a helping hand to me when it seemed I had no further to fall. The message of hope it spreads is much like a single ring of a bell in a crisp winter morning. It rings, even in silence.
However, since I originally opened the pages of your story, there has always been a certain passage that has never seemed to flow as the rest of the book had. When you described the death of Janek in a mere two sentences, it brought, and still brings my heart to a dead stop. What happened? I selfishly ask myself. Did something go wrong in the convoy, or was it merely a “lucky shot” by the Germans? When I read this, I become much like the cat which curiosity killed. Only satisfaction will bring me back, but it is always just beyond the horizon, and just beyond my knowledge. It holds back the depth of his death, and the impact it left upon you.
I read your book two years after your death. It devastated me, knowing such an admirable woman with such prowess was gone. The light you started still burns intensely, though the source faded from existence. If there had been any way I could have heard you speak before an audience, as you had started after people questioned the reality Holocaust, I would have within the next heartbeat. You inspired so many people in a life time that it is simply hard to imagine.
My only hope is that the words you spoke, the experiences you lived, and the message you spread will not die with you. I can only hope that my children and my children’s children will know that someone, somewhere dared defy a people when so many turned a blind eye; that someone dared to put her life, and her immortal soul on the line to save people who you would have, under different circumstances, most likely never have met. I hope they will know there was once a woman who had everything to lose, and all the reason to give into hate, but still told the world, “Remember, love, not hate.”
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
ER.
The worn copy of your memoir lies on my desk, beckoning to be read once more. The spine is creased to perforation, pages loosen with time and fall free of the binding, but the story you tell draws me back time and time again. In my lifetime, no one person has inspired me as much as you. You persevered through so much during the second world war, and came out with an unimaginable barrier of strength. Beyond learning to live outside of fear, and living without secrets, somehow, you came out with this memoir- these personal recollections of a time I can't even begin to comprehend-, and you gave it to the world. You have blessed me and countless others with a gift for which we will never be able to thank you, yet of a scope we may never understand.
There is so much I wish I could tell you; there is more I can't even form into a comprehensive thought. I do know, however, in the four years since I originally read In My Hands, its words have haunted me. What you told has been a constant reminder about how little I need to worry about my life. Everything I consider to be a large problem is truly insubstantial. While I read, you seemed to reach out through the very pages and extend a helping hand to me when it seemed I had no further to fall. The message of hope it spreads is much like a single ring of a bell in a crisp winter morning. It rings, even in silence.
However, since I originally opened the pages of your story, there has always been a certain passage that has never seemed to flow as the rest of the book had. When you described the death of Janek in a mere two sentences, it brought, and still brings my heart to a dead stop. What happened? I selfishly ask myself. Did something go wrong in the convoy, or was it merely a “lucky shot” by the Germans? When I read this, I become much like the cat which curiosity killed. Only satisfaction will bring me back, but it is always just beyond the horizon, and just beyond my knowledge. It holds back the depth of his death, and the impact it left upon you.
I read your book two years after your death. It devastated me, knowing such an admirable woman with such prowess was gone. The light you started still burns intensely, though the source faded from existence. If there had been any way I could have heard you speak before an audience, as you had started after people questioned the reality Holocaust, I would have within the next heartbeat. You inspired so many people in a life time that it is simply hard to imagine.
My only hope is that the words you spoke, the experiences you lived, and the message you spread will not die with you. I can only hope that my children and my children’s children will know that someone, somewhere dared defy a people when so many turned a blind eye; that someone dared to put her life, and her immortal soul on the line to save people who you would have, under different circumstances, most likely never have met. I hope they will know there was once a woman who had everything to lose, and all the reason to give into hate, but still told the world, “Remember, love, not hate.”
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
ER.