A powerful story, at the same time heart breaking and uplifting. And yet, I can't imagine reading this without thinking of the current plight of the Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank.
Indeed, I to am reminded of the present treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and despite the obvious parallels with Nazi persecution of Jews, how perverse it is that many of the Israeli perpetrators willingly and even enthusiastically play their brutal part in this genocide. May Lola’s spirit soar.
As I read this beautiful piece I superimposed a version of these words onto yours. They were, of course, the story that Gazans might tell a generation from now. Did they match? Yes, they matched enough so that I am sure that the evils of the Zionists are their own evils, and not the product of the War or the Nazis.
My grandfather was one of those who didn’t return from Auschwitz, and I don’t know which group of six million he belonged in. But his son was never angry, never bitter, never vengeful. He accepted evil as he accepted fire, wind and earth. His favorite quote, from Pascal: “No man is more different from another than he is from himself at a different time.” But I believe we can still choose. That’s where salvation lies.
Dear Chris Hedges, I have to wash the tears off my face now. I met a woman, years ago, who rescued Jews by forging passports in Vichy Paris. I completely agree that each one of us is capable of acts of great kindness and courage, as well as heartless cruelty. We choose. Thank you for writing this piece in remembrance of your friend.
Thank you Chris Hedges for sharing such a story told with no drama told with a quietness that it was easy to see it and feel it. May your own heart be comforted.
My uncle, a WWII U.S. Army medic, was one of the first Americans into Dachau, the concentration camp near Munich. Built in 1933 for the internment of social democrats, Communists, and other dissidents who were to serve as forced labor. It was expanded after passage of the 1935 Nuremberg Laws decreeing racial (ethic) discrimination. The camp was famous for "Arbeit Macht Frei" on its front gate.
My uncle remained in the Army as a career non-com for over 20 years, also serving in battle during the Korean War. In the '90s when Holocaust deniers began to be seen in alt. media, I begged him to write down a memoir of what he had witnessed. He tried, but just couldn't; the horrific images were too much. Even after 50 years, he would break down, visibly shaking, sometimes followed by nightmares.
I can't imagine what the victims went through.
That's why Never Again! Why real anti-Semitism, vile bigotry against all Jews, cannot be tolerated when pushed by leftists as is not uncommon now because of Gaza. And also why the same slogan cannot be used by Zionists to justify their own heinous acts.
When your understanding of the Holocaust is never again only for Jews, the Gaza genocide happens with your consent. When you subscribe to the idea that Jewish suffering was unique, unlike that of any other people, you confer special rights to Jews, including to right to do horrible things to, and even exterminate, other people - with impunity. The loudest cries of antisemitism come from the ones who think of Palestinians living under your occupation as terrorists, and think that Israel is a legitimate state that, as a military occupation, has the right to defend itself against the people it occupies and has locked away in concentration camps. Antisemitism today is overwhelmingly a weapon used to shut down any criticism of Israel, manufactured by Jewish organizations that systematically protect Israeli interests in the US and Western Europe.
It is not an accident that when you comment about the Gaza genocide, you avoid naming it as such. You will call it "Gaza", or "what's happening in Gaza", or "the conflict"..
The truth is that the vast majority of Jews in the West and almost a totality of their organizations, support Israel regardless of its actions. As long as you stand behind a brutal Apartheid state, you have no right to complain of "antisemitism". As long as your synagogues are holding "real estate events" where American and Canadian Jews can purchase land or homes that were brutally expropriated from their rightful Palestinian owners, and you are doing nothing to stop it, you have no right to accuse the ones protesting against it of being "antisemitic".
Note the details in my comment. Especially in the case of Dachau, the victims were all sorts of ethnicities and included anti-Nazi Germans. And that I specifically said "the same slogan cannot be used by Zionists to justify their own heinous acts." !!!
And I stand by my claim that I've read blanket anti-Jewish comments on Hedges' site, Consortium News, ScheerPost, and sites further left. That's not excusable; nor are your words.
You assume you know what I am because you're certain I "avoided naming (genocide) as such," a leap of totally unwarranted inference. For one, to mention Gaza at all is to reference genocide! That nastiness about "your synagogues" etc. means you, like Nazis, think you know a Jew when you see one. I'm not, nor is or was any of my family. But we are very, very familiar with prejudice and genocide.
Look at yourself when you assert "no right to complain." See my avatar? That's my own artwork. If you're a white person in North America, you are one whose "land or homes were brutally expropriated from their rightful owners" and who benefits because of genocide. Also "you are doing nothing to stop it" if you, like the Israeli occupiers of Palestinian land, don't vacate it and return to wherever you or your ancestors are from. To hell with your white "special rights," too.
Now does my uncle's witness carry even more weight?!!
The condemnation of Jews in the US - or elsewhere - who support Israel is overwhelmingly based on their actions, not on being Jewish. The minority who have used whatever platform they had to speak out against the genocide have been widely celebrated by "leftists", and their Jewishness is not a factor, or maybe it is a plus. Whether you are able to find examples of racist speech online does not discredit the "leftists" in general or delegitimize the wide spread opposition to Israel.
The synagogue example should have made clear how much complicity - or I should say, agency - there is in the Jewish community at large in supporting the Israeli project. If they are willing to discredit their essential institutions by becoming an accessory of land theft in the midst of a genocide, who are the Zionists then? Again, Jews are being condemned for what they do to other people, not for being Jewish. Throwing the Nazi label around won't change the facts, it will only poison the conversation.
I reject the antisemitism narrative because it does not reflect reality. It is blown out of proportion and weaponized against anyone who criticizes Israel. Simply put, in 2025, Jews are not the victims - far too many of them are the proud actors and supporters of a spectacle of cruelty that is condemned by people all over the world. We know who the victims are today - and have been for decades, and I'm asking that we focus on them.
Considering the # of likes to my original comment, most people understood what I meant. Your reply here is a version of the non-apology apology of "sorry if I offended you" without even that little bit. Why do you get to declare what can or can't be discussed?!! This started because you decided my uncle's witness didn't count and you assumed you knew all about me. Also, per what's not in this latest comment, you don't have to consider the Native American experience. Are you one of the whites who believe themselves exempt? Or do you think that particular genocide is so far in the past (if it happened at all) as to be irrelevant to the present, like MAGA whites do?
Did you even read Chris's post or is it to be set aside or condemned because it was about a Jewish woman who allegedly survived an alleged concentration camp run by alleged Nazis? Read the holocaust denier directly below who attacked me from the right. Interesting you both assumed--with no evidence whatsoever other than prejudice--I must be Jewish! So again I ask you reconsider leaping to conclusions based on prejudging, a nice way to say be careful of thinking like a bigot.
Speaking of political wings, you jumped to an unwarranted conclusion there, too. I AM a leftist--with sterling credentials. Like my grandfather, I'm a Wobbly (IWW.) I was a rank and file blue collar activist for 29 years; trained in the '60s by people who'd been CIO union organizers. If those terms are alien to you, look them up and learn some history. I'm no armchair theorist. While you're at it, look up the many comments I've made on C.H.'s blog. All clearly left, especially labor left, deeply critical of neolib econopathy and neocon empire. And of Zionist Israel, since that's the only credential you seem to find valid.
..."how he knows"? Can you count?! Obviously there are very, very few WWII vets still alive. Unless he was a lying German hater--dubious since he married a German from Bavaria--the conditions he saw were so absolutely dire that even if it had started out as a nice vacation spa, the medical crises and gross starvation were for sure the fault of Nazi government.
Read the descriptions in the main article. That's "whatever he witnessed!" Also look up Dachau. Prisoners there were from several countries (including German dissidents,) different backgrounds, and different ethnicities. So if you assume the descriptions are merely the lies of whatever group you despise, not so. There is also plenty of archived film footage taken by Americans, British, and Soviets. The German administrators were meticulous record keepers so mounds of official evidence, too. The testimony, films, and records were presented at the 1945-46 Nuremberg trials. Modern Germans are well aware of what happened.
But then silly things like evidence or logic don't disturb the beliefs of a bigot. Nor does a weak, useless trait like empathy.
Oh goody. My suspicion I was dealing with a conspiracy theorist confirmed. This one is especially bad, since it denies mountains of evidence that not only include, as I said, the records of the Nazis themselves, but extensive photos and film footage. Do you have any idea what it would take to fake all of that?!! The Nuremberg trials were 1945-46 so quite soon and at a time way before modern technology.
Plus, as I said, there were all sorts of people, not just Jews. So were they all part of the conspiracy? And right from the beginning despite the chaos of war and its aftermath with no way of extensive communication such an immense coordination would have required.
Citations don't mean much when they're built on poorly done "research," dubious sources, and quotations from each other. This serves what is called confirmation bias; cherry picking factoids to fit. But then you're not interested in anything that doesn't match your predetermined prejudice, are you? Yet you congratulate yourself as open minded.
The same style of arguments here as flat Earthers, or those who argue imposition of Euro empire was good for Native Americans and sub-Saharan Africans, or the 2012 Mayan calendar as end times, or who believe the 1969 moon landing never happened. They all assert "sources"-- badly documented books and websites consisting of little other than assertion. However, it makes the believers feel like special people aware of what "they" (whoever "they" is) 'don't want you to know.'
When you can't attack the message, you attack the messenger. I'd love to see your Facebook profile, I'll bet it has all the earmarks of a bona fide bot or Zionist shill or government operative whose job it is to monitor social media sites and try to disprove, or in your case, simply attack those who would dare question the official narrative, especially the Jewish Sacred Cow, the so-called Holocaust. When you're ready to debate on some platform besides Chris's, let me know, I have enough evidence to show you six ways from Sunday that the Holocaust narrative is completely and unequivocally false! Just let me know.
READ what I wrote! I made it perfectly clear that the evidence came from far more than just Jewish sources. Are they all part of some conspiracy too?! Including ethnic Poles, ethnic Russians, dissident Germans? And my uncle who witnessed what happened and was damaged for life because of the horror. You didn't refute any of the valid points I raised--because you can't. But since you're committed to a vile belief you plow on ahead, evidence and reason be damned.
So instead you accuse me of whatever because If I'm right, you can't be. Therefore I must be an agent. What fanciful, irrational b.s.! Had you bothered to check the many comments I've made on the Hedges site, you'd know I was a blue collar union rank & file activist for 28 years who despises the Dems for abandoning the majority working class. Plus dissident for many other reasons; especially about the trickle up corporate dominated econ system.
In fact, if you'd even bothered to read this entire thread, you'd see a personal attack on me from the left (instead of the right) for not being, in their opinion, sufficiently anti-Zionist even through I made it clear I am. As well as a very, very good reason why my family is particularly sensitive about genocide despite not being Jewish nor have any of my ancestors ever been. No married in ones, either. Both of you attackers relying on assumptions of what I must be to justify your baseless assertions and accusations. Shame on you!
I didn't use ad hominem, either. I just pointed out logical errors and said citations aren't necessarily proof. Not when they resemble the style of other deniers of various kinds who dismiss reality, convinced they know more because they question an official narrative.
One of the reasons this amazing woman survived is she had the ability, talent? to take us with her as she experienced this terrible time. Like Marcia I cried as I read this. As my generation which remembers that time moves on, I'm 92, it's vital that Lola's story be read. It should be read carefully as an important part of her story is her wisdom. Thank you Mr. Hedges for bringing this to us. I think you should reprint this once a year.
Her circle is complete. Her words are lasting as are those of all survivors of war around the globe. Even yours Mr Hedges. Even yours. Peace. Thank you for sharing this woman with us.
Tears rolled down my face as i read this beautiful piece on the amazing and inspiring Lola. Then I felt anger with Israel and the Genocide in Gaza. Lola represents the true Jewish spirit, that i was taught growing up. Israel represents the evil that Germany fell, too. Rest in peace Lola, and will recite the shammah for her.
I have read so many descriptions of what happened in the concentration camps, but this is one of the most painful. So simply written and so powerful. I thank you - because we need to collectively remember what humans are capable of - both cruelty and selflessness.
Something that keeps going through my mind today is this: Only when the sky is dark can we see the stars.
Even before the Palestinian conflict was catapulted into global consciousness on Oct 7, 2023, I struggled to understand how victim becomes perpetrator - genocide survivors become genocidal. Eventually, I realised the answer lies in the ancient Chinese philosophical terms, Yin and Yang which represents opposite but complementary qualities.
The two qualities of an object or phenomenon are opposite yet inextricably interdependent. The failure to appreciate this fundamental principle of polarity perpetuates human conflicts; across the globe and throughout the centuries.
This ancient philosophical understanding of reality stands in stark contrasted to the Western thinking, “which holds that a pair of contraries cannot both be true. Contrary to this idea, the Yin–Yang concept believes that Yin and Yang represent opposite yet interdependent qualities of everything or phenomena in the universe. In other words, each thing or phenomenon could be itself and its contrary. Further, Yang contains the seed of Yin, so Yang can transform into Yin and vice versa.”
- excerpt from the Handbook of Traditional Chinese Medicine
To understand this horror and still think there is a loving god, is why the horror took place to begin with. We have created divisions where none truly exist. There are no Germans or Jews no nationalities they are all inventions of the human mind.
A powerful story, at the same time heart breaking and uplifting. And yet, I can't imagine reading this without thinking of the current plight of the Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank.
Indeed, I to am reminded of the present treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and despite the obvious parallels with Nazi persecution of Jews, how perverse it is that many of the Israeli perpetrators willingly and even enthusiastically play their brutal part in this genocide. May Lola’s spirit soar.
As I read this beautiful piece I superimposed a version of these words onto yours. They were, of course, the story that Gazans might tell a generation from now. Did they match? Yes, they matched enough so that I am sure that the evils of the Zionists are their own evils, and not the product of the War or the Nazis.
My grandfather was one of those who didn’t return from Auschwitz, and I don’t know which group of six million he belonged in. But his son was never angry, never bitter, never vengeful. He accepted evil as he accepted fire, wind and earth. His favorite quote, from Pascal: “No man is more different from another than he is from himself at a different time.” But I believe we can still choose. That’s where salvation lies.
Dear Chris Hedges, I have to wash the tears off my face now. I met a woman, years ago, who rescued Jews by forging passports in Vichy Paris. I completely agree that each one of us is capable of acts of great kindness and courage, as well as heartless cruelty. We choose. Thank you for writing this piece in remembrance of your friend.
I’m so sorry for your loss. May Lola travel with ease to the welcome that awaits her and may all who love her be comforted.
“I’m not going to die; I’m going home like a shooting star.” —Sojourner Truth
Thank you Chris Hedges for sharing such a story told with no drama told with a quietness that it was easy to see it and feel it. May your own heart be comforted.
My uncle, a WWII U.S. Army medic, was one of the first Americans into Dachau, the concentration camp near Munich. Built in 1933 for the internment of social democrats, Communists, and other dissidents who were to serve as forced labor. It was expanded after passage of the 1935 Nuremberg Laws decreeing racial (ethic) discrimination. The camp was famous for "Arbeit Macht Frei" on its front gate.
My uncle remained in the Army as a career non-com for over 20 years, also serving in battle during the Korean War. In the '90s when Holocaust deniers began to be seen in alt. media, I begged him to write down a memoir of what he had witnessed. He tried, but just couldn't; the horrific images were too much. Even after 50 years, he would break down, visibly shaking, sometimes followed by nightmares.
I can't imagine what the victims went through.
That's why Never Again! Why real anti-Semitism, vile bigotry against all Jews, cannot be tolerated when pushed by leftists as is not uncommon now because of Gaza. And also why the same slogan cannot be used by Zionists to justify their own heinous acts.
When your understanding of the Holocaust is never again only for Jews, the Gaza genocide happens with your consent. When you subscribe to the idea that Jewish suffering was unique, unlike that of any other people, you confer special rights to Jews, including to right to do horrible things to, and even exterminate, other people - with impunity. The loudest cries of antisemitism come from the ones who think of Palestinians living under your occupation as terrorists, and think that Israel is a legitimate state that, as a military occupation, has the right to defend itself against the people it occupies and has locked away in concentration camps. Antisemitism today is overwhelmingly a weapon used to shut down any criticism of Israel, manufactured by Jewish organizations that systematically protect Israeli interests in the US and Western Europe.
It is not an accident that when you comment about the Gaza genocide, you avoid naming it as such. You will call it "Gaza", or "what's happening in Gaza", or "the conflict"..
The truth is that the vast majority of Jews in the West and almost a totality of their organizations, support Israel regardless of its actions. As long as you stand behind a brutal Apartheid state, you have no right to complain of "antisemitism". As long as your synagogues are holding "real estate events" where American and Canadian Jews can purchase land or homes that were brutally expropriated from their rightful Palestinian owners, and you are doing nothing to stop it, you have no right to accuse the ones protesting against it of being "antisemitic".
Note the details in my comment. Especially in the case of Dachau, the victims were all sorts of ethnicities and included anti-Nazi Germans. And that I specifically said "the same slogan cannot be used by Zionists to justify their own heinous acts." !!!
And I stand by my claim that I've read blanket anti-Jewish comments on Hedges' site, Consortium News, ScheerPost, and sites further left. That's not excusable; nor are your words.
You assume you know what I am because you're certain I "avoided naming (genocide) as such," a leap of totally unwarranted inference. For one, to mention Gaza at all is to reference genocide! That nastiness about "your synagogues" etc. means you, like Nazis, think you know a Jew when you see one. I'm not, nor is or was any of my family. But we are very, very familiar with prejudice and genocide.
Look at yourself when you assert "no right to complain." See my avatar? That's my own artwork. If you're a white person in North America, you are one whose "land or homes were brutally expropriated from their rightful owners" and who benefits because of genocide. Also "you are doing nothing to stop it" if you, like the Israeli occupiers of Palestinian land, don't vacate it and return to wherever you or your ancestors are from. To hell with your white "special rights," too.
Now does my uncle's witness carry even more weight?!!
The condemnation of Jews in the US - or elsewhere - who support Israel is overwhelmingly based on their actions, not on being Jewish. The minority who have used whatever platform they had to speak out against the genocide have been widely celebrated by "leftists", and their Jewishness is not a factor, or maybe it is a plus. Whether you are able to find examples of racist speech online does not discredit the "leftists" in general or delegitimize the wide spread opposition to Israel.
The synagogue example should have made clear how much complicity - or I should say, agency - there is in the Jewish community at large in supporting the Israeli project. If they are willing to discredit their essential institutions by becoming an accessory of land theft in the midst of a genocide, who are the Zionists then? Again, Jews are being condemned for what they do to other people, not for being Jewish. Throwing the Nazi label around won't change the facts, it will only poison the conversation.
I reject the antisemitism narrative because it does not reflect reality. It is blown out of proportion and weaponized against anyone who criticizes Israel. Simply put, in 2025, Jews are not the victims - far too many of them are the proud actors and supporters of a spectacle of cruelty that is condemned by people all over the world. We know who the victims are today - and have been for decades, and I'm asking that we focus on them.
Considering the # of likes to my original comment, most people understood what I meant. Your reply here is a version of the non-apology apology of "sorry if I offended you" without even that little bit. Why do you get to declare what can or can't be discussed?!! This started because you decided my uncle's witness didn't count and you assumed you knew all about me. Also, per what's not in this latest comment, you don't have to consider the Native American experience. Are you one of the whites who believe themselves exempt? Or do you think that particular genocide is so far in the past (if it happened at all) as to be irrelevant to the present, like MAGA whites do?
Did you even read Chris's post or is it to be set aside or condemned because it was about a Jewish woman who allegedly survived an alleged concentration camp run by alleged Nazis? Read the holocaust denier directly below who attacked me from the right. Interesting you both assumed--with no evidence whatsoever other than prejudice--I must be Jewish! So again I ask you reconsider leaping to conclusions based on prejudging, a nice way to say be careful of thinking like a bigot.
Speaking of political wings, you jumped to an unwarranted conclusion there, too. I AM a leftist--with sterling credentials. Like my grandfather, I'm a Wobbly (IWW.) I was a rank and file blue collar activist for 29 years; trained in the '60s by people who'd been CIO union organizers. If those terms are alien to you, look them up and learn some history. I'm no armchair theorist. While you're at it, look up the many comments I've made on C.H.'s blog. All clearly left, especially labor left, deeply critical of neolib econopathy and neocon empire. And of Zionist Israel, since that's the only credential you seem to find valid.
Tell us what he saw and how he knows Germany was responsible for whatever he witnessed!
..."how he knows"? Can you count?! Obviously there are very, very few WWII vets still alive. Unless he was a lying German hater--dubious since he married a German from Bavaria--the conditions he saw were so absolutely dire that even if it had started out as a nice vacation spa, the medical crises and gross starvation were for sure the fault of Nazi government.
Read the descriptions in the main article. That's "whatever he witnessed!" Also look up Dachau. Prisoners there were from several countries (including German dissidents,) different backgrounds, and different ethnicities. So if you assume the descriptions are merely the lies of whatever group you despise, not so. There is also plenty of archived film footage taken by Americans, British, and Soviets. The German administrators were meticulous record keepers so mounds of official evidence, too. The testimony, films, and records were presented at the 1945-46 Nuremberg trials. Modern Germans are well aware of what happened.
But then silly things like evidence or logic don't disturb the beliefs of a bigot. Nor does a weak, useless trait like empathy.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220810200347/http://holohoax101.org/; https://ihr.org/journal/v01p-5_butz; https://vaticancatholic.com/holocaust-hoax/; https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-israel-and-the-holocaust-hoax/; https://codoh.com/library/document/jews-say-holocaust-hoax/...and I have dozens more where that came from. I'd recommend reading any of these books: https://www.unz.com/runz/the-bibliography-for-an-alternative-historical-narrative/. There is also an organization dedicated to an honest debate on the Holocaust, www.codoh.com, Committee for an Open Debate On the Holocaust.
Oh goody. My suspicion I was dealing with a conspiracy theorist confirmed. This one is especially bad, since it denies mountains of evidence that not only include, as I said, the records of the Nazis themselves, but extensive photos and film footage. Do you have any idea what it would take to fake all of that?!! The Nuremberg trials were 1945-46 so quite soon and at a time way before modern technology.
Plus, as I said, there were all sorts of people, not just Jews. So were they all part of the conspiracy? And right from the beginning despite the chaos of war and its aftermath with no way of extensive communication such an immense coordination would have required.
Citations don't mean much when they're built on poorly done "research," dubious sources, and quotations from each other. This serves what is called confirmation bias; cherry picking factoids to fit. But then you're not interested in anything that doesn't match your predetermined prejudice, are you? Yet you congratulate yourself as open minded.
The same style of arguments here as flat Earthers, or those who argue imposition of Euro empire was good for Native Americans and sub-Saharan Africans, or the 2012 Mayan calendar as end times, or who believe the 1969 moon landing never happened. They all assert "sources"-- badly documented books and websites consisting of little other than assertion. However, it makes the believers feel like special people aware of what "they" (whoever "they" is) 'don't want you to know.'
When you can't attack the message, you attack the messenger. I'd love to see your Facebook profile, I'll bet it has all the earmarks of a bona fide bot or Zionist shill or government operative whose job it is to monitor social media sites and try to disprove, or in your case, simply attack those who would dare question the official narrative, especially the Jewish Sacred Cow, the so-called Holocaust. When you're ready to debate on some platform besides Chris's, let me know, I have enough evidence to show you six ways from Sunday that the Holocaust narrative is completely and unequivocally false! Just let me know.
READ what I wrote! I made it perfectly clear that the evidence came from far more than just Jewish sources. Are they all part of some conspiracy too?! Including ethnic Poles, ethnic Russians, dissident Germans? And my uncle who witnessed what happened and was damaged for life because of the horror. You didn't refute any of the valid points I raised--because you can't. But since you're committed to a vile belief you plow on ahead, evidence and reason be damned.
So instead you accuse me of whatever because If I'm right, you can't be. Therefore I must be an agent. What fanciful, irrational b.s.! Had you bothered to check the many comments I've made on the Hedges site, you'd know I was a blue collar union rank & file activist for 28 years who despises the Dems for abandoning the majority working class. Plus dissident for many other reasons; especially about the trickle up corporate dominated econ system.
In fact, if you'd even bothered to read this entire thread, you'd see a personal attack on me from the left (instead of the right) for not being, in their opinion, sufficiently anti-Zionist even through I made it clear I am. As well as a very, very good reason why my family is particularly sensitive about genocide despite not being Jewish nor have any of my ancestors ever been. No married in ones, either. Both of you attackers relying on assumptions of what I must be to justify your baseless assertions and accusations. Shame on you!
I didn't use ad hominem, either. I just pointed out logical errors and said citations aren't necessarily proof. Not when they resemble the style of other deniers of various kinds who dismiss reality, convinced they know more because they question an official narrative.
One of the reasons this amazing woman survived is she had the ability, talent? to take us with her as she experienced this terrible time. Like Marcia I cried as I read this. As my generation which remembers that time moves on, I'm 92, it's vital that Lola's story be read. It should be read carefully as an important part of her story is her wisdom. Thank you Mr. Hedges for bringing this to us. I think you should reprint this once a year.
Her circle is complete. Her words are lasting as are those of all survivors of war around the globe. Even yours Mr Hedges. Even yours. Peace. Thank you for sharing this woman with us.
Tears rolled down my face as i read this beautiful piece on the amazing and inspiring Lola. Then I felt anger with Israel and the Genocide in Gaza. Lola represents the true Jewish spirit, that i was taught growing up. Israel represents the evil that Germany fell, too. Rest in peace Lola, and will recite the shammah for her.
I have read so many descriptions of what happened in the concentration camps, but this is one of the most painful. So simply written and so powerful. I thank you - because we need to collectively remember what humans are capable of - both cruelty and selflessness.
Something that keeps going through my mind today is this: Only when the sky is dark can we see the stars.
Thank you, Chris. You are one of the best of the best.
Thank you. I hope that I can endure the challenges this young woman faced, should we encounter a similar nightmare scenario in this country.
May God Bless and Rest her Tortured Soul.
Even before the Palestinian conflict was catapulted into global consciousness on Oct 7, 2023, I struggled to understand how victim becomes perpetrator - genocide survivors become genocidal. Eventually, I realised the answer lies in the ancient Chinese philosophical terms, Yin and Yang which represents opposite but complementary qualities.
The two qualities of an object or phenomenon are opposite yet inextricably interdependent. The failure to appreciate this fundamental principle of polarity perpetuates human conflicts; across the globe and throughout the centuries.
This ancient philosophical understanding of reality stands in stark contrasted to the Western thinking, “which holds that a pair of contraries cannot both be true. Contrary to this idea, the Yin–Yang concept believes that Yin and Yang represent opposite yet interdependent qualities of everything or phenomena in the universe. In other words, each thing or phenomenon could be itself and its contrary. Further, Yang contains the seed of Yin, so Yang can transform into Yin and vice versa.”
- excerpt from the Handbook of Traditional Chinese Medicine
(In 3 Volumes) by Chun-Su Yuan
May she finally rest in the peace of God’s eternal love. May you find some comfort in the blessing of your friendship..
To understand this horror and still think there is a loving god, is why the horror took place to begin with. We have created divisions where none truly exist. There are no Germans or Jews no nationalities they are all inventions of the human mind.