01.28.10
Listen For Your Number
Part of recognizing humor is listening for it. Someone told me that today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Reminds me of when I was working in Mannheim, Germany, at a chemical company.
I would take the Strassenbahn from Boehringer company to the Lampertheim area of town. I would go to work out at the Gold’s Gym there. Then I would wait for the next bus back to Gartenstadt area of town where I was staying.
One day while I was waiting for the bus, I sat next to an elderly woman. She talked, I listened. Although I’d just graduated with a degree in German from Clarion University, I didn’t understand her dialect. I only got about 1/4 of her words.
So all I could really do was listen. Not respond.
While she talked, she made a lot of gestures. I noticed something on her forearm.
It was a string of numbers.
I’d learned about this marking in our German classes, and probably from watching documentaries. But that was the first–and only–time I’d seen it in person.
I wondered what it was like for her. Not just getting a string of numbers burned into your arm. But the entire experience of why she needed to have numbers on her arm.
Point is, if I would have wanted to try out my German language skills, I wouldn’t have noticed her numbers.
If I focused on my reply and making myself look good in language, her story would have gone unnoticed.
If I would have been too afraid to talk to this stranger, I may have lost the opportunity to witness something I’d only read about in history books.
Listening made it real. Listening made me acknowledge it. Listening is what keeps the memories alive.
On this Holocaust Memorial Day, there may be little to laugh about. Or maybe even nothing. But we can still listen to the message of listening to their story. Building our skills in this area will help us to note the humor that appears when the skies eventually do clear.
