While We Still Can 

ONthe rare occasions when my grandmother spoke of Europe before the war, I listened with the mounting dread of someone watching a horror movie. The tension was terrible. Underneath the singsong sound of her accented words, I could hear my own shallow breathing and feel the small hairs on my neck rising. Strains of eerie music were ramping up in my ears. My stomach clenched and twisted. My heart beat madly in my chest. I needed her to go on, and I wished that she would stop.

Because I knew the ending. The shattered glass, the cattle cars, Arbeit Macht Frei on the twisted metal gates. I knew what she didn’t know then, and it terrified me.

I wanted to go back in time to help her. I wanted to shake her. I wanted to shock her, to shock all of them out of their complacency. I wanted to scream, Don’t stay in Europe! Don’t you know what’s going to happen?! Get out while you can!

But of course, they didn’t know. They didn’t believe. And they didn’t leave.