Yom HaShoah

Today is Yom HaShoah, the Day of Holocaust Remembrance. It seems quite fitting that Irena Sendler's story was just shown on TV two nights ago. Irena was a Catholic social worker in Warsaw, who saw what was happening when the Nazi's forced the Jews into the Ghetto. She couldn't ignore it. She couldn't pretend it didn't concern her. Irena smuggled two-thousand five-hundred children out of the ghetto. This is remarkable even without considering the fact helping Jews was a capital offense. She knew there were children she could help, so she did. Irena never considered herself a heroine. She did not glory in the children she saved, rather, she mourned those she could not save.

Irena was a far better Christian than most of us today. She was concerned with right and wrong, good and evil. She was not concerned with tolerance. She knew the Nazi's were evil and did not care what their reason was. How many of us look at the world through the rose-colored glasses of tolerance? It is not right to let Ahmadinejad give an anti-Semitic speech at a conference on race. Israel has every right to exist. The Holocaust must never be forgotten nor downplayed. We cannot, in the name of tolerance, allow his intolerance. The West must let Iran know that we won't let them destroy Israel. Let us all participate in Yom HaShoah by recognizing the hateful anti-Semitism of Ahmadinejab and his cronies. Let us stand up for evil. We need to be more than deeply disappointed, we need to be outraged.

Spring!!

Spring, glorious spring! It may, finally, be here. Today was warm and sunny and brilliant! It's the kind of day that makes me wish I still smoked so I'd have an excuse to go outside more often. Not that I can afford to start that again. It never ceases to amaze me how many of co-workers love that nicotine (which I dearly miss, lo these last nine years ~ never start, quitting is too horrid). The "healthcare system" for which I work strictly forbids smoking on company property. There is a gathering of people at the property line several times a day.

After the last snow, I entertained fears that this would be a year without summer. Today, though, ooh la la. I revel in days like this, when it gets above 50°. And it's Friday!!!! And I have a three-day weekend!!! And, best of all, this is the day we remember the sacrifice Jesus made for us. This is a truly beautiful day.

Good Friday, sad though it is, always makes me rejoice. As a child, I confess, it was mostly in anticipation of the Easter basket. As an adult, it blows me away. I have no doubt I could take a bullet for my husband or any of my children ~ but crucifixion? Followed by three days in hell gathering the no longer damned? Oy vey! How can we not rejoice that He loves us that much?

Today's genealogy tip: Try misspelling. Lots of immigrants are illiterate, as their literacy improves they may change the spelling. Some folks Anglicize their names (Grandpa Jäger became Jaeger then Yaeger in just a decade). Some folks never change the spelling, they get lost because the government employee can't spell. Bureaucrats never ask, "How do you spell that?" They just guess wrong. I knew which my Maurer ancestors lived in in 1860 but could not for anything find them on the census, even with Soundex. They lived near Great-great-grandma Maurer's sister, Mrs. Gasow. I finally searched for Gasow. Nothing. Then I tried a Soundex search for Gasow and found Gausau. The next farm over was Maier. The names & dates matched those I knew and I found some children I never knew of before! Jackpot. Had I tried a Soundex search misspelling Maurer, using Mauer, a common variant, I'd found them five years earlier.