I am going to take my leave from DU for a time:

[barbtries]

189. my mother-in-law was a victim.

most of her family murdered. she has the numbers on her arm. she told me how her sisters and her would squeeze each others' cheeks to try and put color into them before the daily culling of the barracks, because the sickly and weak were taken out and gassed. her own children could never talk with her about her experience, but i found her quite willing to talk to me, and even though we never really got along, i always felt a little good about giving her the opportunity to let some of that go. she couldn't have enough food in the house. i think it's because she truly knew hunger in a way the vast majority of americans never have.
she survived and made it to israel and married and had a family. i don't know that she ever achieved happiness but she did live a life.

i just wish - it feels like a vacant wish - that the people in this conflict, all of them, could regard each other as people just like them. to stop hating, then maybe they could stop this incessant murdering of each other. it just does not appear likely so this goes on and on and on. and it's wrong.