Bubbe's Place: Stories

Injustice

It wasn't just the women who had these nightmares, these fears. Your grandfather insisted on hiding several unregistered guns in our house. I was terrified to have guns in a house with a little boy. What if he found them and played with them? I was even more terrified to have unregistered, illegal guns, in our home. Zayde wouldn't listen to me. He insisted that if a new Hitler arose he needed to be able to protect his family.

All that was a long time ago. What still remains with me? After Hitler, I never looked the other way in the face of injustice. I never said that it's none of my business. I learned that I was not safe, if anyone in my country, in my world, was persecuted. From Hitler, from the Nazis, I learned to fight injustice and ignorance. How did I personally fight injustice and ignorance? I am not and I was not an important person. I am not very brave. I haven't been in the forefront of any major battle. I am an ordinary mother and a simple teacher. In my small way, in my small world, I tried to change attitudes. I taught my children and my students that different is not good or bad. Different is just that, different. When my children were young I lived in a white Jewish neighborhood. When Philadelphia schools were integrated by busing, Ruth was still in elementary school. I invited some of Ruth's black classmates to visit and to sleep in our house, in her bed. It taught my children that skin color didn't rub off and didn't matter. That wasn't so special, but it was the right thing to do.