#172: Who would you chose for parents?
I mean no disrespect by the following prompt response. This is a significant part of Magneto's backstory; I'm trying to deal respectfully with the issue. Please let me know if I haven't. Thank you!
When I read this, I'm sure the obvious question is, do I wish my parents had not been Polish Jews?
After all, had I been born to different parents, I would have escaped so many horrors. I would not have been lined up on the grass on that crisp morning, facing a cadre of soldiers with guns raised. The smell of fresh, turned earth behind me. Knowing, deep down, even as a child--knowing what it was for, that pit. My parents, clinging together, trying to shield me from the gunfire. Falling in a tangle of limbs. Clawing my way out, covered in blood and sweat.
I remember that moment with perfect clarity. I was just a child. But some things--you can't make them go away. No matter how hard you try.
The hunger and the degradation that followed. The camps, the stench of death and terror. I could have avoided all of that, if I'd had different parents. Maybe I even thought that, sometimes. I'm sure I did. I was only a child--who wouldn't have wished such a thing? To be the same as the guards, who were warm and well-fed. Who were not shivering in rags and herded off to die like sickened cattle.
Despite all of this, no. I do not wish I had different parents.
I wish they did.
The guards. The people who ordered our deaths, who terrorized us. By whose decree we suffered.
Maybe then, they wouldn't have done the things they did, to people who were born different. Because they would have been one of us.
They would have been brothers.
When I read this, I'm sure the obvious question is, do I wish my parents had not been Polish Jews?
After all, had I been born to different parents, I would have escaped so many horrors. I would not have been lined up on the grass on that crisp morning, facing a cadre of soldiers with guns raised. The smell of fresh, turned earth behind me. Knowing, deep down, even as a child--knowing what it was for, that pit. My parents, clinging together, trying to shield me from the gunfire. Falling in a tangle of limbs. Clawing my way out, covered in blood and sweat.
I remember that moment with perfect clarity. I was just a child. But some things--you can't make them go away. No matter how hard you try.
The hunger and the degradation that followed. The camps, the stench of death and terror. I could have avoided all of that, if I'd had different parents. Maybe I even thought that, sometimes. I'm sure I did. I was only a child--who wouldn't have wished such a thing? To be the same as the guards, who were warm and well-fed. Who were not shivering in rags and herded off to die like sickened cattle.
Despite all of this, no. I do not wish I had different parents.
I wish they did.
The guards. The people who ordered our deaths, who terrorized us. By whose decree we suffered.
Maybe then, they wouldn't have done the things they did, to people who were born different. Because they would have been one of us.
They would have been brothers.