As a third-generation survivor, this was hardest topic to explain to my child

My grandmother and mother, born in 1945 on my grandparents’ trek from a Siberian gulag back to Poland, both suffered from anxiety, paranoia, severe hoarding disorder and depression. I grew up fearful, and instead of a hot mess, I became a cool art curator – the least Yiddish word I knew – to turn things around. I’d spent so much effort trying to shield Zelda from the emotional aftershock that had so affected me. But Zelda shared my genes and my heritage. If she was asking, surely I should answer. I thought of our other “big talks” and it dawned on me: there must be a book!

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I found myriad lists of recommended titles put out by Jewish organisations, critics, and publishers. I read an essay by a Holocaust scholar who reviewed children’s books to find the best for her own kids; in the end, she determined they were all too imaginative or too dark. She decided not to have the talk at all. What to do?

That night, I found my daughter watching her nightly movie, usually Parent Trap or Trolls. Tonight, however: The Sound of Music. The stupid war was everywhere. I had three kids. I’d been a parent for almost a decade. Surely, I’d absorbed enough. I didn’t need a book. Here was a real-time situation, the perfect opportunity for conversation.

I was going in.

Zelda pressed pause to get a snack. Stay mechanical, truthful, positive.

“Do you know this is the same war that I write about in my book?”

“Yeah. It’s about the Germans.“

“Right. There was German political party, called the Nazis. Part of their mission was to destroy the Jews. They hated Jews,” I blurted.

Zelda looked at me like I was crazy. “Why?” she asked. Why did Nazis hate Jews? Of course, it was not just the horrific torture that was hard to explain, but this.

“That’s a complicated question. Why do people hate? Sometimes it’s easier to blame other people instead of looking at ourselves,” I fumbled. “One answer is that the Jews were blamed for causing the country’s problems.”

“Like Albert Einstein? That’s why he left Germany.”

“Yes, how did you know about that?“

“Duh. School.”

“Nuns also helped my Bubbe,” I told her as the credits rolled. “Like the von Trapps, she also escaped and lived. You are named Zelda for my grandmother.”

Suddenly, I remembered something from the sex-ed seminar that I’d buried until now. You might not be the first to tell your child about sex, and you certainly wouldn’t be the last. You didn’t need to have a big talk with them, but instead, a thousand little talks. The point was to show your child that you were available for discussion, that you wouldn’t hide the truth or evade hazard, and that their questions wouldn’t rattle you. The point was to invite them to ask, to listen to their cues.

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I opened my mouth but could see she’d had enough. She reached for the remote and returned to the film that I hadn’t watched in years. Why hadn’t I remembered the Nazi hunt scene at the end? Could Zelda tolerate it? Thankfully, the movie quickly turned to the living hills, helping to relax her. Or maybe me.

“Nuns also helped my Bubbe,” I told her as the credits rolled. “Like the von Trapps, she also escaped and lived. You are named Zelda for my grandmother.”

“Me?” she looked at me for a long moment. Something had gone in. I glanced around us at my apartment strewn with dolls and octopus teethers, plasticine stains peeking out from under mountains of laundry, no end in sight. I would not always be able to protect Zelda. Parenting, of course, was teaching a child to protect themselves. I nodded. “You come from strength.”

The Light of Days (Hachette Australia) by Judy Batalion is out now.

This article appears in Sunday Life magazine within the Sun-Herald and the Sunday Age on sale June 27. To read more from Sunday Life, visit The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

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