1 Jun 2008
Hugh Fitzgerald

Wonderful.

1 Jun 2008
Ernest Helliwell
Thank you, Mr. Dalrymple, for your moving comments on these two remarkable women, who suffered great adversity, but did not let it destroy their spirits. You are fortunate to have known both of them.

4 Jun 2008
michael farr
thank you,  as always you hold up a clear unmisty mirror.

5 Jun 2008
SD Goh
Thank you for this moving story, Dr.Dalrymple. The Holocaust is of one the darkest episodes in history and any account about the separation of loved ones is heartbreaking to read. Man's inhumanity to man is unspeakable. A distinguished Russian Jewish cellist, one Spielman (I am afraid I don't remember his first name) who studied at the Moscow Conservatoire, also sought refuge in China during WW2 just like your grandfather did. After the war he came to Malaysia to live, and died here too. One of his students is now the principal cellist of the National Symphony Orchestra here.

7 Jun 2008
Viola Jaynes
What a wonderful and very meaningful essay.  I will look this book up as well as I have just finished re-reading Victor Frankl's book "The Search For Meaning" again.

8 Jun 2008
alfred
The highest tribute one can pay is silence. And so, silent I shall be.

13 Jun 2008
John
That nest of vipers, otherwise known as the Grief Industry, will be very annoyed with Dalrymple.


John

13 Jun 2008
Norman Dale
I find this a very liberating perspective on what we choose to remember (at least out loud) and what instead we deliberately drive to the recesses of memory. It is hard to know whether the latter is really what people who've lived through personal and social trauma do with their past. I like to think they find some way of picking at the scabs, very privately, that deepens their life, transmutes inescapable grief and horror into what they do with, in man cases, the sheer dumb luck of survival. I have been fortunate, I guess, to have no such choices to make unlike my father, a Jew also from what was once Slovakia and now has been absorbed in Ukraine.

13 Jun 2008
Russ Thayer
Well, again, what an elegant humanbeing.

13 Jun 2008
Tony
I think silence is okay if one wants to be, but there is nothing wrong with the talking and sharing of ones experiences. It depends how one talks of their own sufferings and how they might use their experiences that matters. Shutting up and staying silent is not a virtue in itself, neither is disclosure. Some may suffer silently feel trapped into this. Only when they reveal what they have experienced can it be a relief for them and others to finally know what they suffered through as it offers understanding and insight. One can't be too black and white about such things.

13 Jun 2008
Andrew Smith

I enjoy Dr. Dalrymples' writing, but I doubt his assertion that it is better to refrain from sharing our suffering. I have experienced and seen others experience relief from saying what was upsetting them and what they have been suppressing within themselves. Is there any evidence for the idea that bottling it up is always or usually better?

 

13 Jun 2008
marly youmans

How beautiful this is, the account of simply going on with pain burning in the next room . .

It reminds me of Yeats's party of those who go "proud-eyed and laughing" to the tomb. And calls to mind that closure to a life, "The rest is silence."

13 Jun 2008
Carmelo Militano

A moving and quiet piece of writing about Vrbova's resolute courage to live a normal life and that of the author's mother. No pity, no hysterical anger, just muted saddness and the need at the end to honor  and perhaps in someway redeem those who suffered, were murdered, by a barbarism no one was ever able to forsee or comprehend until it was too late.

13 Jun 2008
Robert Kennedy

The child is father of the man.  I quote: 'I was puzzled by this line of moral reasoning: I did not see how the hungry people of Africa would be helped if I stuffed food I really did not want down my protesting gullet. But a home is not a parliament, and I did, more or less, what I was told.'  Like most 'intellectuals,' he has spent a lifetime stuffing down what he has been told to eat, and regurgitating it back up at us.  No wonder he retains a hatred for those of the young capable not just of independent thought, but of having the courage to do something about it.

13 Jun 2008
Cas Balicki
Imagine going through all that suffering and not not a "Grief Counsellor" in sight.

13 Jun 2008
daria jaremko
Strange to submit comment on the lamentably lost virtue of keeping quiet, so I'll have Ms. Dickinson do it:

Confirming All who analyze
In the Opinion fair
That Eloquence is when the Heart
Has not a Voice to spare—

13 Jun 2008
Steven Cox
A friend of mine, a nice woman, is currently anguished about an issue in her life. She has called my wife numerous times about it over the past week. She has had some troubles, as do all people, but nothing on the order of what Dr. Dalrymple wrote of. You could even say, she has been coddled her whole life. In this case, her hairdresser ruined her hair. The hairdresser was arguing with her boyfriend on the phone while applying the colour and my friend, a wealthy middle-aged socialite, ended up with purple hair. It is pretty disastrous, I have to admit. At least, that is if hair had any significance whatsoever. I can't decide if this is a health aspect of humanity, or a hugely unhealthy one. If all we did was dwell on the overwhelming pain that can be experienced I don't know if any of us could function. But, our ability to forget gives way to pampered middle-class people really, really, really upset over trifles. It would be nice if we could all look past the genuinely sorrowful aspects of life without necessarily becoming shallow, or too easily hurt. S

13 Jun 2008
Timothy A Weeks
Thank you for your article.

13 Jun 2008
Steve Meikle

Yes , this fine piece of thought knocks the stuffing out of the latest method of social control that masquerades as healing, namely psychotherapy, and moreover psychotherapy of ANY kind.

But like the old lady mentioned in the piece I am of the view that man never learns. So the constant memorializing of trauma, both personal and societal, is mere exhibitionism; and a mere fad of today's world

Moreover pouring out my own heart to people only prompted them to offer nostrums that were egregious quackery, ranging from pseudo encouragement to pull my sef out of it or recommendations to seek therapy where the soothing lies told me were buttressed by drugs.

Keep your suffering to yourself and you will not be kicked in the teeth

14 Jun 2008
ed bumstead

In cases of extreme trauma, it is often not within the power of the will to suppress. Suppression is done out of necessity.
Words at a given point in time may not be available or enough.

Expressing extreme personal trauma to others is usually  futile...and so empty.
The real compounding you speak of is; becoming trapped in a spiral of need, looking for someone to listen...most will not, and worse...they forget...

14 Jun 2008
jane
I too admire the insights of TD. Beyond the personal choices of quiet or divulgence is the extremely important question of testament from those who have been subjected to behaviours beyond humaneness.  Therefore I believe one must record the injustices and barbarism done to oneself within historical contexts. It remains essential, as there are too many  anonymous agents  who work against these sad truths.

15 Jun 2008
Karen Griffin

I was born in 1957 and grew up on Long Island, NY.  There were people (grandparents, aunts and uncles) of my friends who had numbers tatooed on their arms.  No one ever talked about it, but we all knew what it meant.  I asked my father (a WWII veteran) about the tatooed numbers and he told me how the Nazis killed millions of Jews along with Gypsies, Catholics and anyone else who didn't fit in with their sick "master" plan.  He also told me how boatloads of these people were turned away from the so called civilized countries. 

I remember all these people I met.  None of them was particularly charismatic.  They led quiet lives dedicated to their families.  And even though I am not Jewish, there hasn't been any moment of any day that I have not believed that Israel needed to exisit.  I still cringe when I think of the generation before me that found it politically expedient to deny these people sanctuary.

I remember these relatives of my friends.  I saw with my own eyes the tatooes the Nazis placed there.  I have passed these memories on to my child.  And, God willing, I will pass them on to my grandchildren.  I will never forget.

 

15 Jun 2008
Frank Shifreen
I respectfully disagree Mr. Dalrymple.
 I have a different analysis of the events in Paris 1968.  Your anger at the cartoon depicting DeGaulle as Hitler is understandable,and I share it. The students in May 1968 were supported by workers and others who rebelled not only against the government but  also  against the Communist and Socialist labor movement that wanted to reign in the resistance. The so-called Situationist critique
is very interesting. In retrospect , in my opinion it is  conservative and libertarian( and also anarchist). the basis was  on the rights of the individual to the pursuit of liberty and happiness. I am not defending the protest
I believe the causes of the generational conflict
in 1968 was precisely the silence that our parents and grandparents.
Many of that generation did not share their experiences.
My father never talked about the war or his service. You wrote about your mothers Jewish heritage. Many Jews  who went through the war rejected their culture as a way  perhaps of ignoring the chasm of grief  to deep to open.
Here in America Madeiine Albright as well as ex-senator George Allen discovered their Jewish descent. I know many others. They had never heard it discussed.
My sense is that Paris 1968 ( and cultural equivalents in the US and  Great Britain) were a reaction to the silence of their parents of their parents and guardians.
I do not know what it was like for you. I am from a Jewish family. It was the elephant in the living room. Everyone tiptoed around it.. Dr. Vrbova felt it necessary to write her story and I believe the survivors and veterans should have told their stories  to their children instead of the stiff upper lip that was charateristic of their generation. I theorize that many of the counter cultural currents were fueled by children who were not told  the stories that would give meaning and context to their experience
Thanks
Frank Shifreen

16 Jun 2008
George Davis
In an age of tell-all TV and reality shows, I am continually amazed at the World War II generation's humility and grace at keeping those awful stories close to the heart. Thank you, Dr, for another excellent article!

16 Jun 2008
robert m. de rycke

The difficulty may lie in what we mean by "share." To me it is a form of I-Thou dialogue, rather than mere listening. The hearings in South Africa after the collapse of the Apartheid regime seem to point to the only real need which is to be "heard."

 

I wonder whether the author feels "heard" now that he has disclosed his reservations about "sharing grief." Choice Theory argues that all we get from our environment is information. That includes memories. The recipient of the information processes the information on the hand of his or her value system.

17 Jun 2008
Bernie Pattison

I have sometimes felt that when someone shares with you their feelings of a tragedy in their life that they are giving you a gift.You can accept that gift as a burden or see it for what it is, giving you a look into their soul.

I prefer the latter.

17 Jun 2008
PBasch
Beautiful piece, and much truth in it.  As far as "Mai 68" is concerned, I went to the Lycee Francais de New York, and all I knew is that, after it was all over, they loosened the dress code somewhat.  We could now wear pale blue shirts, not just white, and the girls could wear slacks in winter. 
As far as sharing is concerned, intent is key.  Whether one's suffering is world shaking or trivial, one can choose to burden others with it, and hammer them on the head.  Then, sharing is doubling.  But one can teach, too, which would involve sharing.  There are Holocaust survivors who do much speaking and teaching, not to wail and "vent", but to let others know what happened.  I suppose he is right that if humanity is unteachable and irredeemable, that sharing would be a waste of time.  But if your outlook is even a little less nihilistic (and if anyone has earned nihilism, it's a survivor), then you might believe that sharing is worthwhile.

18 Jun 2008
Galen Tinder

I always enjoy reading Dr. Dalrymple but the issues of memory and past experience are more nuanced than he acknowledges. He understandably deplores all the narcissistic whining we hear these days over relatively trivial annoyances. The whining, the vocalization, further anchors the person in their resentment and it becomes a tiresome self-perpetuating cycle

But these incidents that occasion so much outcry are, precisely trivial and in distinction from the profound suffering of the two woman of whom the author speaks. Who knows whether they kept silent in front of everybody. And if they did, it may have hindered them from absorbing their experience into the remainder of their lives. Not having suffered to anywhere near that degree, I don't know. But my relatively minor sufferings have leavened my subsequent life by being remembered and spoken of. And precisely through these actions they have been denied a place from which to tyrannize what remains of my days.

 

Galen Tinder

 

Galen Tinder

22 Jun 2008
Sully

Thanks for the enlightening article. 

There is another aspect to all this question of sharing problems and sufferings that my mother and grandmother occasionally pointed out.  The harsh truth is that people may listen politely, but no one can really share your suffering, nor do they really want to hear your problems. And then again one can never tell how one's problems will compare with those of others - my father lived his life as best he could despite his problems, and handily outlived the doctors who warned him to get his affairs in order at a young age.  I admire the fortitude of the stalwart women you described.  They got on with their lives and achieved all they could.