Throughout my entire life I carried a deep sorrow for certain groups; I learned about the Holocaust at a very early age, when an aunt went to visit friends and took me along.
The couple were wealthy lawyers in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and had a library. It was the first library I had seen at that point. It was filled with books, and if you think that's a redundant statement Google search interior houses designs and you will see magnificent libraries used for Knicks-knacks.
The moment I got into that space I knew that books would be a part of my life; the tour of their house end there for me and I asked the simpatico couple if I could stay there looking at the books. They smiled and said yes, and before leaving to the rest of their tour, the woman named Fatima, I think, took a book off the shelf and gave to me to peruse.
It was Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. A book that I have read precisely 32 times, cover to cover. It might be time to do it again since this "conflict" 😂 in Gaza; for those who don't know, conflict is the safe word the media uses not to offend The Terrorist State of Israel, which is just as well, since in my dictionary it is a synonym of GENOCIDE. I typed all in cap because it is the minimum I can do for the 4,000 children killed by Hitler s children.
While reading Divine Comedy, a large book on the shelf caught my attention. It was leather bound, it was heavy. I was 8 or 9 years old at that point. It was a book about the Holocaust. There are not enough words we can say about it. Ever. When Schindler's List, came out I finally saw the magic of cinema used to powerfully depict the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime. Not the Germans, the Nazi regime. If history taught us anything it is to carefully differentiate the people of a nation from their government. i.e. The Terrorist State of Israel and the Jewish people
I took the book off the shelf and it weighed 50,000 TONS of weight; I began studying the glossy pages and I was horrified. Pages and pages of letters. I had never seen so many letters in a book and when they got tired of typing letters they posted pictures. I read I read I read and I cried.
I already knew at that young age that the world was violent, unsafe, that the adults said one thing and did another, and that I was alone. What I didn't know was that other people suffered too, and a lot more than I.
For years to come, I would romanticize Jews and confuse them with the Jews that perished during the Holocaust. I naively thought all Jews were the same: deeply religious people, family oriented, hard working and industrious.
Can't count how many times I suggested that the black community should emulate the Jews to get a decisive hold on their destiny without falling prey to insidious self serving "leaders." whatever it is that idiotic word means. Never in my life I needed a leader.
Now, all the Jewish persons of this world watch their leaders bombing an entire nation of mothers, fathers children, babies, and animals into non-existentence. I think some animals have died in Gaza, the media never reported on it. Have they?
