One morning every spring, for exactly two minutes, the nation of Israel comes to a complete stop. Sirens sound, pedestrians stand in place, and drivers pull over to the side of the road. Nobody speaks, sings, eats, or drinks as the nation pays respect to the victims of the Holocaust. All except Sigmund Schiller. He treats it like an ordinary day. Which is amazing because Schiller himself is a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, where he was imprisoned at age 15.
When his daughter Daniela was in the sixth-grade the teacher gave an assignment to interview someone who survived the Holocaust. Daniela sat with her dad at the kitchen table and asked him about his memories. He said nothing. It was a silence he held for decades.
But not long ago, Sigmund Schiller spoke about his Holocaust experience. It happened once, and he says that it won’t happen again. It was for a documentary and Daniela warned the film crew that he probably wouldn’t say a word to them. They asked him about his memories of the Holocaust and there was a long silence. Then to Daniela’s astonishment her father began to speak. In a flat monotone but with tears in his eyes he said, “I was eleven when my little sister was born. I was very attached to her, and she was closer to me than to my mom. I taught her how to walk. Her first words, her first laughter was with me. I am the one who raised her.”
He had never mentioned having a sister, not even to his wife. The last time he saw his sister, his mother was taking her to their maid’s house. Later, he heard a rumor of what had happened. Mr. Schiller said, “Two policemen came, and took her to the fields. One was a ‘humanitarian.’ He didn’t want her to suffer, so he took her toy, threw it away, and said go pick it up. That way, he could shoot her in the back without her knowing.”
The film crew sat in silence. He then made a comment about the movie “Sophie’s Choice” where a woman (played by Meryl Streep) is sent to Auschwitz with her children. She was forced to choose which one of her two children would be gassed and which would proceed to the labor camp. She chose her son, Jan, to be sent to the labor camp, and her daughter, Eva, to be sent to her death.
Mr. Schiller said, “People talk about ‘Sophie’s Choice’ as if it were a rare event. It wasn’t. Everybody had to make Sophie’s choice – all of us. My mother left behind a four-year-old with the maid. You don’t think I was beaten and shot at? There are no violins in my story. It is the most common thing that happened.”
When the finished documentary was previewed in the Schillers’ living room, Daniela hid her eyes with her hands, and so did her father. For the most part, they were immobile. On camera, she asked him if he had consciously suppressed this information. “Yes,” he said. “You must suppress. Without suppression I wouldn’t live.”
Daniela Schiller is a leading researcher into traumatic memories and post-traumatic stress syndrome. Her research centers on the connection between memories and fear.
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Adapted by David Holwick from the article “Partial Recall: Can neuroscience help us rewrite our most traumatic memories?” by Michael Spector, New Yorker magazine, May 19, 2014. < http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/05/19/140519fa_fact_specter >
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[Original illustration at this number was moved to HolwickID #2393]