My Father May Have Escaped the Holocaust, but It Was Me Who Got Stuck

Jennifer Krebs

I’ve never been much of a flirt with people, but ideas? I flirt shamelessly. I don’t fall head over heels, but I linger. I’ll bat my lashes at a seductive concept, maybe take it out for coffee, but I rarely commit. One of my life mottos is “Don’t believe everything you think.” It has served me well, especially when it comes to the thoughts that won’t leave me alone.

Take “child of a Holocaust survivor.”

My father was born in Germany in 1928. His teacher was a Nazi. He witnessed Kristallnacht in November 1938. He was eventually sent on a Kindertransport to Belgium. He and his parents made it to the United States in 1941 on one of the last trains out of Germany.

But he never saw himself as a Holocaust survivor. He wasn’t in a camp. He never sought therapy. He worked nonsto