As I reflected on everything I had heard, I felt emotionally drained. Rena’s stories, images, and thoughts were not words in a history book: they were memories—her memories—and they lived inside of her.
Our time together had ended; I put my bags in the car and turned around for one last goodbye. Rena stood there smiling, but her face reflected sadness, and her eyes were heavy. I tried to fight the urge to cry, but the tears started to flow, and I couldn’t stop them.
Rena hugged me tight and gently pulled away, but her hands remained on my arms. She looked deep into my eyes and saw the tears. As I met her gaze, my mind flashed through all that those eyes had seen—still see.
Her grip on my arms grew a little tighter. “Thank you for listening and hearing my story,” she said. “Now, whatever you choose to do with is up to you. For me, I know it was heard. You are now an eyewitness to what happened, and my story will have life in you.”
Rena Ferber Finder was a Holocaust survivor from Schindler’s List and my cherished friend.
She left this world in December, but her words and her generous and brave spirit have never left me.
I dreamed about her last night. When I feel the restlessness in my thoughts, my spirit seems to know what I need, and the voices come to me.
The Courage of Being an Eyewitness
I had the deep privilege of interviewing Rena for my book. I didn’t understand what she meant by being an eyewitness at the time. But over the years, in conversation with this incredible woman, I came to fully appreciate that Rena, with her courage and strength, had invited me into her world.
She had challenged me to own the responsibility of being an eyewitness—to walk in her shoes and view intolerance through her eyes, to feel the raw pain of terror in her words, to taste the bitterness of indifference, and to hear the silence of hate. I am convinced that on that chilly evening, as we stood together in her driveway, Rena knew the blessing, the gift, and the complex challenges I would face as an eyewitness—the challenges and painful choices that confront all of us in the face of moral courage.
I have learned that being an eyewitness is a painful journey—stepping into our humanity in the shoes of others forces us to confront and face many things about ourselves.
Labeling of Humans
An eyewitness is brave enough to see the broken, fragmented shadows in the eyes of those in pain, hear the silence, and feel the humiliation of those who have been reduced by labels. The labels we assign make it easier for us to pass quick, cheap judgments so we don’t have to step into the pain of seeing them as human beings.
This separation by labels is the only way that I can imagine the unthinkable atrocities that we humans can inflict on other humans. It’s unimaginable to know that human beings could leave their home, kiss their children, and then go to “work” and place other human beings in a gas chamber.
Assigning labels to humans, creating fear, and placing blame that they are the source of all that is wrong in our lives is the playbook for how we grant power to those who commit these horrible acts.
Words of Caution and Hope
I hear Rena whispering words of caution and words of hope.
The cautionary message is that we are all at significant risk when we close our eyes to injustice and become silent bystanders.
Human beings are wired for good, compassion, and connection, but we also have the power to change our wiring and remove ourselves from this connection. Using words like “others” and “them” allows us to create emotional distance, which is the first step to disconnecting from our humanity. This is the answer to the question of how we can do these horrible things to each other.
Bystanders are not created spontaneously—we don’t suddenly become inert to the needs of others. It happens one subtle thought at a time. It begins when we give ourselves permission to deny our own ugly biases and then draw conclusions as if our prejudices were facts. I am still working on this for myself.
Rena’s story is not simply history –it is today.
And I hear her whispers of hope. Rena described Auschwitz as a terror-filled, cold, and gray place. But when she closed her eyes at night, she dreamed of her father, who had been killed, but she could still hear his watch ticking and his words of hope. “The world will come for us. Just hold on.” Her father believed in the good of people, even in the end.
Hope is the Breath of Survival
I feel hope. I see hope.
Inside each of us is the potential to be a bystander, a perpetrator, or an Upstander –standing up for each other. We get to choose, and that gives me hope.
Somedays, I feel that I choose well; other days, I fail miserably, but I hear Rena whispering.
“Now you are an eyewitness, my story will have life in you–what you do with it is your choice.”
