“Today I am 72 years old and belong to the so-called the second generation of Jews, i.e. born after the war. Of course, as I get older, the trauma of the Holocaust affects me only partially. How does it manifest itself? In our family, Jewishness was discussed quite openly, perhaps because my father was one of the few who escaped from what was then Czechoslovakia and therefore did not experience firsthand the horrors of the Holocaust.
35 members of my father's entire extended family perished in various concentration camps. Gradually, as I researched history, which became my hobby, the need to do something grew in me so that Judaism would not be forgotten and disappear.
The opportunity arose for me during the restoration of the Jewish community after 1989, when I signed up as a member and gradually became involved in its activities. At the end of 2014, I gradually worked my way up to the position of chairman of the municipality, which I still hold today.
But I will return to the trauma. This objective phenomenon awakens in me depressive feelings and at the same time feelings of not understanding how something so terrible could happen. I am still looking for the reasons, but today I see that it is not so difficult, although in a more sophisticated form than then. I feel sad that I didn't have any grandparents and other relatives who, as I see in my family, are the wealth that we have today.”
~ Jaromír