Seeing things

See the oldest boy on the right hand side? That’s my father’s first cousin and his name is Boruch. He’s standing with his brother and sisters, and their names are Esther, Shmuel, Pesa and I think the girl on the left hand side in the polka dot dress was called Bat Sheva.  

The children in the picture were moved to the Riga Ghetto with their parents three years after the photo was taken.

In 1941, the family were moved out of the Ghetto and taken to Rumbula Forest.  The children were shot there, along with their parents and 25,000 other Jewish children and adults.  Boruch survived because he was old enough to join the Russian Army.

I’m afraid I can’t read the details of what happened to them on the way to their deaths in Rumbula Forest because it is just too horrible. 

But maybe you can. Maybe you can explain how people can do this.  I try to understand because I think it will protect us from it happening again, but as many people as I ask, and books that I read, I still don’t understand.   I’ve heard the theory that the Nazis saw Jews as vermin; and less than human. 

But I don’t think that explains it.  Do these children look like vermin to you?  Do they look less than human?  

Do we really all see things so differently?  

In the middle is the children's grandmother, Gnesia. (She is also my father's grandmother)
The children's parents, Abram and Tamara, are on the extreme right.
They were murdered in the Shoah.
This photo was sent to me by Boruch's son, Simon Shteinman, who lives in Riga today.