For the love of Esther

5 May 2008

by HRM Deborah

In this blog, several times, I have either written about or made reference to a very dear friend named Esther that I have kept in my heart all these years.

I may have mentioned before that I was only about 8-10 years old when I knew her and she just happened to have been one of Oskar Schindler’s Jews.

She seems to come more to mind these days, I am thinking because of the recent holidays for the Jewish people, but also the approaching holiday of the Al-Nakba.

To me in a very short period of time, I feel I had gotten to know her quite well, even if my knowledge at that time of the Jewish Holocaust may have been small, even to this day I must admit I do not know everything.

Several times I had seen a book by Thomas Keneally, called "Schindler’s List" and because of wishing to know more of what happened to my friend and I happen to have seen a movie by the same title doesn’t always tell a person everything they may wish to know; so I got the book today.

For me because my friend did not go in depth to what happened to her, other then she lost all of her family in the Holocaust and she was the only survivor and I was later to get to know someone that could explain more to me about my friend, I did wish to understand what really happened to her. Mainly, because of my love for her even to this day.

One thing at the time that I knew her, has always stayed in my mind and it came the last day I was to ever see her and she said these things to me within her tears. She was crying that day because she was to leave me and she would never see me again.

This has been a puzzle to me every since that day, that she thought the only reason she survived the horrors of what the holocaust did to her and even loosing her family, that she would meet someone like me one day. She said these things to me out of respect and love, while I do not know if it was because of who I would become in my future because of my family or something she saw within me that made her feel at peace.

I hope one day, to know the answer.