Today the 7th anniversary of September 11, my Grandmother, age 92 passed away. I am off to Israel now. Before leaving I wanted to post a letter I sent to National Review. Katheryn Jean Lopez (editor of National Review) was nice enough to post my letter so to share my grandmother's memory with thousands of National Review Readers.
“Be on guard and be aware.” [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
An e-mail from a reader on his way to Israel:
How ironic that I would lose my maternal grandmother (92 years old) on the 7th anniversary of the attacks of September 11. My maternal grandmother, Rosalia Isaac, is the most heroic person I ever knew. My grandmother was one of the last Jewish people on earth who came face to face with Joseph Mengela, and lives to tell about it. In addition to surviving one of humanity’s most disgusting killing machines at Auschwitz, she also survived a Nazi death march and near starvation before being liberated from the Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp.
My grandmother told us that she always thought she would survive the ordeal – an amazing admission from an amazing person. As a father with two adorable young children, I often asked myself why would she would fight to survive after her two children, my uncles were murdered at ages 3 and 4. My grandmother taught me that more than anything else life is worth living.
About 16 years ago I interviewed my grandmother on her Holocaust experiences. At the end of the interview she left me with these important words:
“This Genocide has been denied by many as being untrue. How dare they deny that this happened! How dare they to deny the genocide of six million Jews out of which one and one half million were innocent children. Larry, this can't be allowed to happen again, not to anybody, so be on guard and be aware.”
My grandmother’s passing on September 11, 2008, reinforces the most important lesson of 9-11… “Be on guard and be aware.”
09/11 12:32 PM
