96: Pinned by History
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One oh two five five seven the number had been on his left arm since the war since the concentration camps his three years in Auschwitz and One day a couple of years ago living in New York City. It occurred to him One oh two five five seven The number given to him by the Nazis He could play the lottery with it Well, well to be here when they came the lottery I sometime played the number where I gave it up I said because didn't work didn't they came to my mind. I said I shouldn't do this. Did it. Did you ever win? No, no never won any money on that number. No But what way I bet you decided you shouldn't do it. No, how come? Because I think that didn't I shouldn't it remind myself of this whole thing, you know When something terrible happens to you in the moment of crisis It's rare that you can meditate over what it means when Jan tomorrow was in the concentration camps When he was sent to work in the German coal mines when he was selected for experimental surgery by the Germans He didn't have bad dreams then he says no You just took you was just looking to get food and stuff like that. You're just looking at what's going to be We have what happened what we you know in the morning And as I am getting older, I am more and more Haunted by my past and the fate of my family in what crying almost every night And I mean I can't do anything about it anymore So I try to be busy try to read book I try to make anything to do anything To forget I read papers and books I read everything about the present not about the past you mean, yeah What memories come back Sometimes Jan says he'll remember a holiday meal some small happy memory of his family who died in the gas chambers But that's rare mostly. It's the bad moments which come back and among those the one he returns to more than any other moment Is the day in May of 1942 when his family was rounded up by the Germans and arrested The whole thing was big when we were all taking to this place Lichtman's blood. See right double mirror and this came and they took my life. Oh my family my little brother. It was a little genius my sister and They put them in those big Commercial baggens what are they having ready to ship? cows and everything, you know, it was the last time he saw his sister his little brother his mother his stepfather a Moment that no matter how many times you look at it never makes sense One minute your life is one thing small private the next it's something else thrown about by forces so much bigger You're seized from your normal life and pinned in the beam of history Welcome to WBZ Chicago and public radio international. It's this American life I'm Ira Glass today on our program pinned in history the stories of people who are lifted out of everyday life Throwing into much bigger events and how they made sense of what they did years after the fact Act one book of Job a man who betrayed his friends and then betrayed the people who he betrayed his friends for Act two God of War How a guy with one year of psychology graduate school got put in a position to decide who would stay at the front lines in Vietnam and Who could go home? And what he did with that power power he never wanted and when he makes of all of it now stay with us Act one So it's one thing if your life is thrown about by forces beyond your control It's another if you go out of your way to insert yourself into history and hurt people and Ruin other people's lives as part of that How do you make sense of events for which you only have yourself to blame? Scott Carrier has this first story February 17th 1957 was the worst day of Harvey Matuso's life at
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