Sal's Reflections

Tomorrow we honor all those women who gave us life and nurtured us in countless ways. I have been blessed to understand the endless relevance of the value of Motherhood through the modeling of Frances,Dorothy,Elaine ,Rosemary and a bevy of wonderful women who made life meaningfulfull and fulfilling. For my Mother,Dorothy and others who have died they live in our very breath and daily existence. We are better for having known and loved them, and their grace and goodness now must live in us.
For those whose Mothers still walk the face of the earth please treasure them and let them know that they still make a vital difference in you and all you touch.

Years ago when someone retired they had about thirteen social security checks to cash before the Grim Reaper made a visit. Today for many retirement is just another word for the ultimate promotion to fulfill a host of dreams and opportunities. My dear friends Pat and Bob Gussin are primary examples of all that is left to accomplish. They started a publishing company ,a vineyard in New Zealand and I am sure a host of other projects that keep them engaged and vital. It is ok if when the time comes that you leave the regular position and trade it in for the rocking chair. But it is equally ok to dust off the dreams that you have carried for decades.

This is a week where we celebrate one of the key groups that are vital to every aspect of our lives,Nurses.From the first moment of life to the entire panorama of the human experience nurses play vital roles in our world. In my case I recall their care and comfort when I had serious knee surgery in college.This experience was complimented by the emotional and physical support rendered during my sisters illness and death.Their understanding of the raw emotions that wrench the human heart was more than merely being dispensers of pills. They re traditionally the group that polls the highest in the areas of trust and respect. They have earned this praise, and I celebrate who they are, and what marvelous service they provide for the community

Conversation with Miriam Cohen

One of the main characters in “The Cross and the Swastika” Miriam Cohen did not initially see the Nazi’s as a real threat.
Question Miriam how did the Nazi’s taking back Austria effect your life?
Miriam:” For a short period of time I thought it would have little effect because Vienna always had strong anti-Semitic roots but up to the Anschluss I ignored this form of prejudice.”

Question: When did you realize how dangerous it was for a Jew in Vienna?
Miriam: “When the restrictions to our freedom were intensified. For a short period the laws seemed trivial, but it was not long before the pain and suffering were intensified by overt acts off punishment and violence.”

Question: Why didn’t the Jews resist this treatment?

Miriam:” We could not resist the violence directly because of the overpowering force of the Nazi’s but we resisted by embracing our Judaism and refusing to abort that which gave us real meaning. You must also understand that we could not imagine that the process would lead to the gas chambers.”

Question” How could you avoid hating the Nazis?
Miriam: “If I hated them I would have been just like them. It is more naïve to hate than to love. I knew that my only hope was to retain the higher ground even in the most horrendous circumstances.”

In less than a week we will celebrate a day to honor all those wonderful women who were our primary source of life and learning. It was at our Mother’s knee that many of life’s valuable lessons were learned. It is also important to remember all of those women who never bore physically a child, but yet were a source of physical and emotional support for all of us. They may never have been technically mothers, but so many gave of their time and love to aid us on the road to maturity.Their may be no national day for these women, but if like me there were role models whose love helped shape you please remember them and pause to honor their love and commitment to you. There are and have been so many of these women in my life and none more influential then my sister Tina.I will honor the wonderful mothers who have loved me and my children, but I will also raise a glass this week to the honorary mothers who deserve our notice and praise.

Writing about the Holocaust can be a lonely ,painful and isolating experience. However, I am energized by the commitment I made to my friend and mentor therefore I must continue to be a witness. It would be foolish and vain to believe that I can do this by myself, so I am appealing to all my friends and family to assist me. I need your insights, strategies and networking in order to reach the largest possible audience. In reality you will be my “Street people” and publicists. As we venture toward publication in August I will make specific requests and welcome all of your “brainstorming.” To get the ball rolling if you send me your email address I will forward the first three chapters of the new novel. Thanks for all you have done already,

Failure is the one threshold that prevents many dreams from becoming reality. The memories and fears of the stumbles remind us that there is pain when things go wrong. It s the most rare human life that does not have a museum of moments when we failed at something. it may be relationships, a project, a business venture or a host of other experiences that create emotional scar tissue. No matter what the reasons the accompanying emotions often prevent us from taking on new challenges. In essence it is critical to realize that the ultimate defining failure is to let the past determine current choices. Failure is not the end of the plot that judges our character , but rather the ability to try and overcome the frailties that we all experience.

One of the great blessings I enjoyed when I lived in New York was the friendship of Robert Shore.I met him one morning at the Corner bakery and had no idea that he was one of the foremost artists in the United States.A career filled with mammoth accomplishments, his work is found at the most prestigious Museums in the country. Only his humility kept him from bragging about his fantastic paintings and sculptures. Visiting his apartment one had the feeling that they had entered the Metropolitan Museum. Blessed with a keen sense of humor and human insights every morning at the bakery was a spiritual and intellectual growth opportunity. I will miss him as he died yesterday, but I will treasure his friendship and draw on what he taught me about leading a meaningful life.

Holocaust Remembrance

“Now that you know what happened you must be a witness.” With these words Dr. Viktor Frankl a Nazi concentration camp survivor and author of” Man’s search for Meaning” radically changed my life. The Holocaust, which I had always regarded as a tragic historical period, transformed into a personal reality through our many conversations. Never preaching or ranting with a righteous vengeance of one who had lost so much, he often told me stories as though they happened yesterday. The stories were never merely abstract examples, they were filled with names. places and hordes of vivid details. The familiar columns of numbers, and sterile statistics that we had all witnessed became people with names and faces and personal life histories. These were sisters, mothers, fathers, friends, old and young. No longer were they numbers in a history class, or newsreel moments that flashed on the screen and then faded away. Once they became flesh and blood with names and places they were not easily forgotten
The horror of the Holocaust became more intense with reference points to my life. Although no one could fully understand the Holocaust, I began to see it in light of my own human experience. My life growing up in a community where diversity was not punished, but rather seen as positive was so different from what the Jews experienced. I had never lived in a climate where any second I could be arrested and thrown into the back of a truck like a sack of potatoes. These moments with Viktor at dinner, during class, while walking through the city with him, or speaking with other Holocaust victims, opened the wellspring of insight that was powerful and compelling. There were no smooth edges and simple answers. Initially it was almost impossible to believe that an innocent group of people could suffer merely because of their race.

Through Dr. Viktor Frankl’s eyes and the experiences of other survivors, I witnessed the stories of the atrocities. I understood that it could have happened to me and my loved ones. I Imagined holding the hands of my infant children, waiting to be slaughtered, or watching my parents be herded into a cattle car bound for the crematoria. These realities had a lasting impact on my consciousness and spirit. They made the event’s tangible and were bridges to those horrendous times. There were moments when the temptation to retreat from the facts was almost overwhelming. One vivid experience was when a survivor recounted how his entire village was slaughtered in one day. He only survived because he was in the forest collecting firewood.
No one could ever understand or explain the evil that they experienced, but I knew that there was an obligation to listen and adsorb the pain .Time does not diminish the acts of cruelty that were the hallmarks of the Holocaust. It is not the passage of time that heals the wounds of these horrors. To continuously honor the victims and recount the stories is not the maudlin search for vengeance. It is the obligation to keep alive the memory of those who suffered by personalizing their lives. They were not merely numbers that can be aggregated into a collective tragedy. These were singular persons with the human needs and drives that we all possess. They were neighbors, friends members of their communities parents ,children and elders. Life was stripped away from them without cause.
We must keep alive the memory of the Holocaust and remember all those who died, and those who also at great risk stood up for the Jews. We must also remember those who relished and fully participated in the horrors, and those who around the world, the majority of people, who stood in silence and washed their hands of culpability.
Those who survived and those that liberated the camps are almost all gone and the torch must be past to the next generations. For this horror never to occur again it must be remembered more than one day a year.
We must never forget.