understanding

How far can cultural understanding really go? I know I’ve covered this topic before, but it reemerged on my consciousness this past week as we solemnly remembered the ten years that have passed since that Tuesday in September.

Memory often fascinates me, especially my own. I can remember obscure facts from my sixth grade Social Studies textbooks (the rise and rule of Justinian comes to mind) but I struggle to remember what I did last weekend. Things I read tend to stick with me; things I do tend to fall by the wayside. A friend of mine once remarked to me that she felt I paid more attention to books than to life. She might have a point.

But I will always remember the 11th of September, or at least I will always remember my Hebrew teacher Shoshana Cohen coming to me after Second period and telling me that the Twin towers had fallen down. It would weeks, months, years before I would even begin to wrap my head around those statements. I remember driving through Montclair and seeing the black smoke enveloping New York city. I remember walking into Jeff’s house, more scared than I’ve ever been in my life. I remember the days afterwards, the planes flying overhead and the silent wondering, “could we be next?” I remember the fear that permeated us all, and the terror upon which we declared War.

How does one properly convey a memory? Next month, I am beginning a series of lessons in Lysyanka, the nearest town of 10,000 people which before the war was almost 30% Jewish. I will be teaching about tolerance, stereotypes, and Jewish history and traditions. Together with the students, we will conduct a research project about the Jews of our region, and we will hopefully build a museum of Jewish history and tolerance on the grounds of the former Jewish cemetery.

The topic of our first lesson will be, “What is History?” I’m going to attempt to convey that no history, no story, can be completely objective. The author or the teller’s voice and opinion always seems to seep through. In Ukrainian, the word for examination, ohlyad, is very close to the word pohlyad, or viewpoint. Does the lone p explain enough of the difference?

Most of my students know nothing of 9/11. People my age tend to be inundated by many of the 9/11 conspiracy theories, theories that have such a casual relationship with the truth that it in many ways saddens and offends me. Even the people in my village who know of the day---how can I explain to them what it meant? What it means? What it will mean tomorrow?

On Friday, I asked my Director if I could take a few moments to speak to the students the following Monday. He agreed.

On Saturday, the Sabbath, I read a book, Holocaust by Bullets, written by Patrick DuBois. It is the story of how DuBois, a French priest, traversed the Ukrainian countryside in search of Jewish mass graves, interviewing aging witnesses, recording unwritten history. The book is depressing in and of itself, but living in a village much like the ones he describes, it was especially difficult. The worst part of the book, the hardest chapter to read, are the ones where it describes the pits that were dug, the bodies thrown in, and the reports of what it looked like afterwards: For three days, the earth moved. Jews were shot and buried alive. For three days, the earth moved.

On Sunday, I thought about the ten years, and the seventy years since the mass killings, and the almost 80 years since the great Ukrainian famine. I thought about the pain of memories we have and the pain of memories we hear from others. I thought about life, and about death, and about God.

On Monday, I came into school. After second period, I called an assembly. And as the students were standing there, I told them about that Tuesday in September, and about the towers, and about the terrorists, and about the nearly 3,000 people who died. I asked them to remember that these people were killed in the name of hate. I shared with them my believe that weapons of hate can only be defeated with weapons of love. I told them the only thing we cannot tolerate is intolerance. I gave them a piece of my memory, in all its subjective glory.

And then I asked them for a moment of silence for the lives lost. In silence we stood.

On Friday, there was another in a long line of Ukrainian holidays, the day of flowers. Children picked flowers from their gardens and brought them to school. Tables were laid out with reefs abd bouqets galore. Olha Alexandrivna, the Ukrainian language teacher, asked me to clarify the date of the tragedy of which I spoke. A few minutes later, she showed me a reef of flowers her children had made. Pamyatayemo bci scho pomerli na 11oho veresen, 2001. We remember all those who died on the 11th of September, 2001.

They may not understand what 9/11 means to me, or how much it troubles me to know that for three days, the earth moved. But it seems that I can convey to them the importance of it all, at least to me. Getting them to care, having them remember my subjective memories, might be victory enough.