Don't Forget to Remember

Description

Don't Forget to Remember reveals how seconds and inches can mean life or death, literally. Two stories of survival merge, one of parents who experienced unspeakable torture, trauma, and loss, the telling of which fulfills a promise. The other is a story of promise, a daughter's struggle to break free from the effects of her parents' trauma, which had become hers, and her effort to become her own person and heal. In 1941, Aviva's parents and their young son's lives were irrevocably changed forever when they were taken by Hitler's SS men in the middle of the night. Separated from one another and transported from one concentration camp to another, they feared for their lives. They saw their entire families taken to their deaths, and not long after, the baby son who was shot as Aviva's mother watched in horror. After the liberation and persistent searching, they were reunited and started to rebuild their lives in the Bergen-Belsen Displaced Persons Camp, where Aviva was born. After residing there for three years, the family relocated in the United States. Aviva grew up repeatedly hearing her parents and their friends talk about their experiences during the Holocaust. Deeply affected by their trauma, her parents instilled in her a sense of fear and mistrust and the belief that everyone she loved could be ripped away. Their terror became her terror. By the time she was a teenager, Aviva turned to alcohol and drugs to cope. Her parents watched their only daughter slowly kill herself as her struggle with alcoholism continued for decades. The unrelenting support from her family and friends and a change in perception gave her the strength and commitment recover. No longer tormented with the cravings of alcohol, she hopes her story will help others.