1. The scar that life cannot get around.
My name is Zev Guttman, and I am 90 years old.
Maybe with mild Alzheimer's, I often forget things intermittently, such as waking up early in the morning, often forgetting that I'm in a nursing home, or forgetting that my Ruth has passed away for several days.
Max Rosenbaum was an old buddy I met in a nursing home. He's about my age, but he's an old man in a wheelchair because of a stroke.
Max and I were Jewish survivors of that war more than 70 years ago, but none of our families were spared, and they all died in Auschwitz. However, the Nazi officers who killed them somehow managed to escape postwar trial.
Our lives cannot escape this scar. So we decided to find and end the Nazi officer who killed our loved ones before our lives were over.
2. Those injuries that cannot be repaired
According to the clues provided by Max, I went all the way to find the former Nazi Auschwitz guard who had moved to North America under the pseudonym Rudy Kurlander.
Although the first three Rudys I found were all wrong and had nothing to do with me and Max's family being killed, I can still clearly see from them that the war, which has been gone for 70 years, was in their imprint on life.
The first Rudy was a German officer who had followed General Rommel in North Africa and he is still very proud of being Hitler's soldier;
the second Rudy was a Jewish survivor who was Oswi Sin's victim. This old man, who is now lying peacefully in the hospital bed, still has pain in his heart;
A third Rudy died a few months ago, the former Nazi cook at Auschwitz who had adored Hitler's "magnificence" all his life. This adoration sustained him throughout his life and succeeded in turning his adoration into his "spiritual legacy", which was inherited by his son.
I clearly felt that the distortions and injuries brought about by that war, in fact, were not repaired as the war went away.
3. The cruelest secret in my memory
I found the last Rudy on the list, and he actually knew me. Well, this time, it shouldn't be wrong.
I looked around Rudy's house, with children and grandchildren around their knees, rich and warm. The war more than 70 years ago, the sins of Auschwitz more than 70 years ago, did not seem to leave any traces in his life until my arrival.
I thought everything would end as I imagined, but things didn't end that way...
Rudy's secret buried in his heart for 70 years is my vague memory. I finally came to my senses, it turned out that I would forget things intermittently because I deliberately wanted to forget my stories and my memories that I didn't want to accept.
It turns out that my strange name, Zev, Hebrew for "wolf," records the most brutal truth about my identity and Rudy's, the most brutal secret about me and Auschwitz. This secret, Rudy chose to try hard to bury it, and I chose to try to forget it.
When everything was remembered, I lost my reason, I, ended myself...
Fourth, pray for world peace and
war, in addition to destroying matter, it also subverts systems and laws, drags down civilization and morality, distorts human nature and mind, no matter what Whether it is for the party who started the war, or the party who is forced to participate in the war.
There has never been a so-called "just war" in this world. There will be an end to the
war, there will be winners and losers, there will be trials and there will be reconstruction.
However, for those who have experienced war, there can no longer be a real "healing of the soul", whether it is for the perpetrator or the victim, whether they choose forgiveness or hatred, Choose to remember or forget, choose to keep or stay away. All distortions and past injuries are indelible marks, quietly accompanying and affecting their lives.
Now, my soul is wandering on the way to heaven.
I don't know if God will open the gates of heaven for me, what I do know is: I traded my life away for the peace of my soul.
The Russian writer Dostoevsky once said:
"The only thing I worry about is whether our future life will be worthy of the suffering we have endured."
Now, it's also my mood.
Pray for world peace!
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