I didn't know PFC Katzman ... but as we head towards Memorial Day at the end of the month, learning of his passing in last Sunday's newspaper actually had a very meaningful effect on me.
It turns out that Private First Class Katzman was one of the concentration camp liberators at Dachau.
Sometimes it is hard to fathom the horrors of the holocaust. A mind can't quite grasp the magnitude of the evil unleashed as part of that campaign. To attempt to understand all that occurred is to risk spiraling into the darkness where there is never light and from which one cannot return. And because it's so difficult to comprehend, the whole history of the holocaust is sometimes reduced to reciting a single well known number. Museums have worked to translate what happened into a sharing of the many stories of those affected so as to find a way to break through that mental block to honor the remembrance of those lost to history.
Which brings me back to PFC Katzman and his obituary. It told a simple yet impactful story about how he couldn't stand attending barbecues. The reason -- the smells of that seemingly most benign of American summer pastimes -- reminded him too much of the smells that assaulted him on the day he shot the lock off of the gate to enter that concentration camp.
I'll pause for a moment to let *that* sink in.
Powerful testimony that caused me to shed a tear for a man I never knew ... and for the millions more that were sacrificed ... a man who will most surely be missed ... with a story that will live with me forever.
RIP GEORGE KATZMAN:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/obituaries/article77546547.html
THE LIBERATION STORY:
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005131
"BEHIND EVERY NAME A STORY":
https://www.ushmm.org/remember/the-holocaust-survivors-and-victims-resource-center/benjamin-and-vladka-meed-registry-of-holocaust-survivors/behind-every-name-a-story
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