Happy Birthday to My Grammy, my Nagymama who immigrated from Hungary over 100 yrs ago. If she were alive today she would be 121yrs. She was a weaver in the woolen mills in New England. She was awesome. She came to live with us when I was 1 yr old. She raised me. She taught me how to knit and the appreciation of the fiberarts. She taught me how to “Cheat the Devil” at Solitaire. Maria Ana Soltesz walked so fast––even in her 80s––that I could barely keep up with her. She sang beautiful songs in Magyar. I miss her. I miss her lost in translation sayings… like… “How much clock?” meaning, ‘What time is it?’
So my dear Nagymama…thank you for loving me (in your own gruff way), thank you for raising me, thank you for your song, your strength. Thank you for bravely leaving your homeland, alone, at age 15. You lost your family to Hitler’s Nazis. You taught me how to persevere. I love you. Until we meet again.

US President Barack Obama and Buchenwald survivor Elie Wiesel walk to 'Kleines Lager' (Little Camp) inside Buchenwald concentration camp, 05 Jun 2009

“The president said he saw the ovens where prisoners were cremated and the bunks where they were kept in what he called the most “unimaginable conditions.” He said the sites have not lost their “horror” with the passage of time, and that grief and outrage over what happened have not diminished.

I debated whether to put a picture up of the camp. They upset me just to look at them. I believe we need to remember and feel that gut wrenching pang of the Holocaust.

So, I post the benign picture of Buchenwald
and the horrifying one (there were many worse; I could not bring myself to post them)