Family History

My dad was born in the 1920s. He fought in World War II in his teens.

My mom was born in the 1930s in Germany. She lived in Nazi Germany as a small child and during World War II.

The fact that my father was an American soldier and my mother was a German national made it difficult for them to marry at all. It took them something like two years and a stack of paperwork a foot tall to finally get permission to marry.

In the meantime, a baby was born out of wedlock that should have been legitimate based on the intentions of the two parents.

That baby was my older sister. She was born at home, delivered by midwife and had a German birth certificate. She had to get naturalized but would have been recorded as an American birth abroad if they had been married.

She was born in 1958. My sister's dreams feature Nazis as a symbol of bad stuff in her life. 

My dreams don't include Nazis as a symbol. To me, those are historic events and not something that's that immediately a firsthand part of my life.

My mother had a chronic sinus problem for years. She had free medical care available through the military and wasn't getting satisfactory results, so she paid out of pocket for a biopsy to try to get adequate care.

In 2001, I was diagnosed with a genetic disorder with significant respiratory stuff involved. I called my mother to tell her and the first words out of her mouth were "That's NOT what's wrong with me!!!"

In addition to Jews that we all hear about, the Nazis sent disabled people and imperfect people to concentration camps. They were trying to create a perfect race of genetically superior people and they executed people like me.

And potentially people like my Mom for carrying those genes.