Reweaving loss into memory: our responsibility as survivors
Amy Oestreicher |
TEDxFSCJ
• April 2018
As a thirteen-year-old, Amy Oestreicher decided to throw a surprise birthday party for her grandmother, Hannah Stochel. Neighbors and relatives gathered about the kitchen table, but when Hannah arrived, she burst into tears, explaining that her friends were not there to join in—they had all died during the war. Shocked and unsettled, Oestreicher eventually spent years recovering the hidden threads of her grandmother’s life. As a Holocaust survivor, her grandmother was forever haunted by loss, yet she still found the strength to celebrate when times were good. That was the lesson Oestreicher needed to learn to survive trauma in her own life. Each of us, ultimately, has so much to learn from the lives of those we’ve lost, but it is up to us—to learn their stories, and tell their stories, reweaving loss into lasting memory.