The Choice

medieval architecture, but my mind is too heavy with expectation—a
strange mix of promise and dread. We pause outside St. Mary’s
Church to hear the trumpeter play the hejnał that marks the top of
every hour. A group of teenage boys jostles past us, joking loudly in
Polish, but I don’t feel their merriment, I feel anxious. ese young
men, a little older than my grandchildren, remind me how soon the
next generation will come of age. Has my generation taught the youth
well enough to prevent another Holocaust from occurring? Or will our
hard-won freedom capsize in a new sea of hate?
I have had many opportunities to inĘuence young people—my own
children and grandchildren, my former students, the audiences I
address around the world, individual patients. On the eve of my
return to Auschwitz, my responsibility to them feels especially potent.
It isn’t just for myself that I’m going back. It’s for all that ripples out
from me.
Do I have what it takes to make a difference? Can I pass on my
strength instead of my loss? My love instead of my hatred?
I’ve been tested before. A fourteen-year-old boy who had
participated in a car the was sent to me by a judge. e boy wore
brown boots, a brown shirt. He leaned his elbow on my desk. He said,
“It’s time for America to be white again. I’m going to kill all the Jews,
all the niggers, all the Mexicans, all the chinks.”
I thought I would be sick. I struggled not to run from the room.
What is the meaning of this? I wanted to shout. I wanted to shake the
boy, say, Who do you think you’re talking to? I saw my mother go to the
gas chamber. I would have been justiĕed. And maybe it was my job to
set him straight, maybe that’s why God had sent him my way. To nip
his hate in the bud. I could feel the rush of righteousness. It felt good
to be angry. Better angry than afraid.
But then I heard a voice within. Find the bigot in you, the voice
said. Find the bigot in you.