A strong story has the power to speak to many people in different ways. A Father’s Memories of Auschwitz is an example of such a story. The reader never learns of the actual horrors revealed to Debby Fisher by her dying father. The details are left open for interpretation by each of us. What we can do is imagine.
We’ve all opened the “door” and entered the “room” that Debby’s father alludes to. Sometimes when we walk through the doorway it is with the knowledge that ugliness and horror wait inside. Others times we innocently cross the threshold. In either case, we take a piece of what lives in the room out with us when we leave. It changes us and becomes a part of who and what we are.
This story took me back to all of the “rooms” I’ve entered throughout my life and brought to mind a recent situation that occurred in my family. My son, Jeremy, is a recent college graduate and works in law enforcement. Not too long ago he was one of the first to arrive at the scene of an accident that involved a fatality. The next morning he called me and we had a long conversation about the accident. I was naturally worried about his emotional well-being and asked him how he was doing. He said that he was fine and made a comment that the body he saw didn’t seem to be an actual person. However, he didn’t feel the same way when he called again a few days later. One of his friends had told him that a website had been set up in memory of the victim. Jeremy decided to visit that website, and like Debby Fisher, he opened the door and entered a room that changed him forever. In Jeremy’s case, the room that he entered held the contents of a person’s life. Suddenly “the body” was a person; a person whose life was cut short by accident. Jeremy entered that room with innocence and good intent. When he left the website, part of his innocence stayed behind and part of that person left with him. He told me that he regretted visiting the website and said that he would not make that mistake again. As a mother, my heart ached for him. I know that with the profession he has chosen this is but one of the many thresholds he will cross.
