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I understand where you're coming from (I hope). I don't mean that we should ignore the Holocaust or its unimaginable effects to go chasing daisies. But right now, I know that there's no way _I_ could live with myself if I thought about what really happened every day, all the time. It's enough to kill a person (absolutely no pun intended). Yes, we'd like to remember the Holocaust now to keep it from repeating itself (obviously, we haven't done enough--think Kosovo), but think how amazing, that then, in the midst of all the atrocities, to have control, at least, over _some_thing, in this case the life of someone you love. What happened to the thousands (yes, incomparable to millions) who were left alive at the end of it all? How do you think they survived? Pure luck? As many died on their own as at the hands of a Nazi soldier, I'm sure of it. Wallowing in muck is not the best way of getting clean, and wallowing in your situation is not the best way to survive it (IMHO). "The point of minimizing the unmitigated horror of genocide is as self-defeating as it is childish,"--absolutely true, if you live in the 90s, untouched by the whole thing. But if you're the object of that genocide, then I believe you have a right to make sure that your _child_, of all people, doesn't have to live with a memory so emotionally scarring. Leaving someone open to that kind of horror is as bad as killing them yourself; why feel sorry for yourself and let them die when you can protect them, if not yourself, even if you have to make a game out of the whole experience?
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