The picture is not the best, but look at this woman. It is good enough. You cannot see it here, but she has bright blue eyes. I have seen 30 pictures of pictures of her. Almost no smiles and when there is a flicker of one, there is still sadness in her eyes. If you just go by appearance, I could run into this woman in a protestant church in Greenville SC. But that is not the story. Tova Friedman is a Jew who was four years old when the Germans invaded Poland. There were 5,000 children in her town when the Germans came. Only four survived. Horror. Sheer horror with a human face.
On January 4th, I wrote about adverse childhood events that Pat Conroy and I experienced. Pat was a master storyteller. I think Tova is his equal. She was born in 1938 in the Danzig, Poland area. She was one when the Germans invaded. She begins the story with her first memories when she was four. Adverse childhood event is much too sterile a term. Her young life was one horror after another. Her first memory is the death of her grandparents. The Germans came and took her grandparents downstairs and shot them in her home. They forced her parents to dig the graves for them. They started with the elderly, doctors, and lawyers. They shot them all.
German doctors would not treat Jews. German scientists and physicians participated in the world gone mad. They did experiments on Jewish children. Doctors and scientists were part of the problem. Jews were on their own. The Jewish doctors were dead, the Germans doctors would not treat them. This video is a must-see for anyone in medicine. It is worth your time. This woman is talking about the social determinants of health through the eyes of a child. It is magnificent and horrible at the same time.
She eventually landed in a concentration camp. She learned to recognize the approaching Germans by the sound of their boots on the wooden floor. She was coached to immediately move out of their path, to remain still, quiet, and avoid eye contact. She learned to just look ahead. Her gaze as a young child would have landed at about belt-level. She would have seen this belt buckle on many German soldiers.
The inscription reads “Gott Mit Uns.” God with us. Think about it. There are sections in the United States where there many Germans settled. German culture is a big part of our culture. “Silent Night” is a German Christmas carol. Handel’s “Messiah” was written by a German. Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud spoke German as their first language. Martin Luther broke with the Catholic church and is the father of our many protestant denominations. Much of the culture that American hold dear has German origins. Germany before and after the Nazis was and is a very cultured country.
But there was a darkness in the land. Martin Luther himself was a vicious anti-Semite. He did some great things. He was a child of the light. But he was also a child of the darkness. You can easily confirm that fact. You can read about it in his own words Jews and Their Lies. “Moreover, they are nothing but thieves and robbers who daily eat no morsel and wear no thread of clothing which they have not stolen and pilfered from us by means of their accursed usury. Thus, they live from day to day, together with wife and child, by theft and robbery, as arch thieves and robbers, in the most impenitent security.” The Nazis used this book in their radicalization of the German people.
Darkness seems to be becoming more oppressive in our own country and medical people must help reverse that trend. Darkness is a root cause of the social determinants of health. Adverse childhood events are not only due to parental abuse. A culture that separates children from parents and put them in cages has begun the slide. In Germany it was Jews and Roma (formerly known as Gypsies). Certain elements in our own culture are dehumanizing African- Americans, Hispanics, Muslims, and yes, too many Americans still hate Jews. It is not different. It is a matter of degree. Jewish children in Germany carried a heavy burden of adverse childhood events, just like the children of black American slaves. All must have had PTSD. Tova’s mother died at age 45. A healthy, well-adjusted adult population comes from children that are loved and protected. Every American has a stake in the social deteriminants of health. Facts, evidence, compassion, and the truth. That is the path forward.
Excellent, illuminating article. As usual from you, this piece highlights the many ways that our culture participates in damaging children who are the keepers of the future world.
Right on, Bill.