What a Week it has been…
This Veterans Day was also the 400th Anniversary of the Mayflower Landing. This week saw the 245th Anniversary of the US Marines, during the 250th Anniversary of Beethoven and the 335th Anniversary of J.S. Bach. And today, in 1851, Herman Melville published Moby Dick…a nice SYNC for the prequel & sequel works by yours truly. (Find the AHAB & Death to Moby Dick Love Stories on Amazon, Audible, Spotify, etc.)
in contrast, 82 years ago, this past week, was Krystallnacht. In that dark, here is a story.
At Auschwitz, Lily Ebert was a teenager. She had nothing, not even a piece of paper. A liberating American soldier gave her an always-remembered Gift. It was a German banknote on which the soldier had written the words, “As a start to a new life. Good luck and happiness.”
It was the first act of Kindness Lily could remember.
At age ninety, while going through some papers with her great-grandson, she rediscovered the note. Together, they tracked down the identity of the soldier, Private Hyman Schulman, a Jewish-American soldier who served as a chaplain’s aide. Though Schulman passed on in 2013, Ebert is now in touch with Schulman’s children.
Everyone needs such an act of Kindness and the gift of Friendship.
“In Einem Anderen Licht.” please accept this sincerely offered scribbling:
"Happiness, even in the Storms, and Godspeed!” S
© Stephen Melillo, IGNA 14 NOV 2020