“Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before - more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.”
- Charles Dickens
Siegfried and Alice Peltesohn were listed for decades in Yad Vashem's list of Jews murdered during Shoah. Now they are removed and will soon join the Hall of Names' list of Survivors.
I will fully admit to having cried in the middle of Kinkos when the employee handed me the printed photos. And again looking at the pages together. And again at Starbucks. And again right now as I write this. I'm just So. Damn. Happy. This is one of the best-feeling, most personally satisfying things I've ever done. I know it's just two people compared to millions who died, but for me it feels like I, one single person, have issued a massive "FUCK YOU!" to the Germans and stolen my great-grandparents back from them.
There's a moment in Doctor Who where the Doctor, fighting to save the life of a single child, screams in desperation to the universe "Give me a day like this! Give me this one!" I got that day.
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