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It wasn't our grandmother. It was our mother who blew her top at the school board.
Our grandmother was from Austria. She was imprisioned in concentration camp. Our grandmother never spoke of what happened to her, what religion, race, or political party she was that caused her to be imprisioned. She was a teenager back then. The only thing that remained from those times for her was the tattoo on her arm. She wore long sleeves to cover it. I did ask her once, as well as my aunt, uncle, and mother. She refused to speak of it. What ever she was she took it to her grave.
Now our mother, was born and raised in Morocco. Her experiences were quite different than our grandmothers. She also refused to say what exactly happened to her. Morocco is an interesting country, and beautiful. What ever happened to her was dealt with swiftly, we do know that.
We have asked over the years, but when someone refuses to talk, you can't force them. We have a general idea what their beliefs are. Despite whatever things they have been thru, they respect others beliefs. The rest of the family can only respect the fact that they don't want to share theirs.
Bluemoon
A lot of prisoners in concentration camps were also victims of "not being part of German or Aryan culture." Many Poles, Slavs and Hungarians were put in concentration camps as well as Gypsies.
My great-grandmother was a Rom Gypsy from the Ukraine and came over during WWI with her younger sister. She was known as "that heathen woman" in the Catholic Polish community of Detroit/Hamtramck, also became an actress (another no-no for respectable women). She lived to be 100 years old, drank cheap whiskey, smoked cigars, swore in 7 languages. We always joked that she lived so long because she obviously wasn't going to Heaven and the Devil didn't want to put up with her.
Great-grandfather in another branch of the family came to the US from German-held Poland in the early 1900s during the Kulturkampf. This may sound horrible, but I'm glad he died before DH and I got married. DH is German--uber-Deutsch.
One of my college friends said something once that I thought was very relevant to this thread: Just because you've found Jesus doesn't mean you have to share Him with everyone!
Yup..my husbands grandmother (who is still with us) was in a concentration camp in Germany or Poland.. (i'll have to ask hubby which..i forget...because they are polish...but his mother was born in Germany.....) They had to fake her birth certificate so she could stay with her mother in the camp otherwise they would have split them up..
She still uses the fake birth date today..because it makes her younger...
But..sad times..its made a big impact on who she is today..and she wont really talk much about it. (i dont blame her..
