The Boy On The Wooden Box

The Boy On The Wooden Box

Juvenile biography
"Rabbis resisted by conducting services on Jewish holy days.
Doctors and nurses resisted by fighting to save the lives of the ill
and injured and by bringing new life into the world. Actors and
musicians resisted by creating makeshift stages in hidden courtyards
and performing plays and skits and holding concerts, affirming that
beauty and culture could exist even in the midst of the horrible
circumstances of the ghetto."
I hope those words take your breath away, as they did mine, when
I tell you that they were written about the author's experience in a
ghetto in World War II. These people were trapped in a situation of
extreme privation by those who viewed their existence the way I saw
the lice my daughter brought home from first grade. Can you imagine
being relentlessly hunted down by people who saw you and your loved
ones as vermin to be exterminated? In this setting treating one
another with decency and respect and affirming life and prospects for
a future (bringing babies into a very precarious world) were some of
the most radical acts possible.
The Boy On The Wooden Box by Leon and Elisabeth Leyson and
Marilyn Harran is one of the most heart breaking and hope inspiring
books I have ever read. Don't let the juvenile designation fool you.
Kids, parents, and grandparents will be blown away by this amazing
volume. Leon is Everykid trapped in a nightmare horrific beyond the
most lurid imaginings of Steven King. His words, all the more
eloquent for their simplicity, bring home the evil of the Holocaust in
a way that mind boggling statistics can't.
Leon started out as a child, savoring what life had to offer:
swimming in the river, crafting skates to race across the ice,
enjoying rare moments (he was the youngest of five) of his mother's
attention and presents his father would bring back from the big city
where he worked. "...I cherish the memories of the small world where
I lived the first years of my childhood. It was a world defined by the
love and warmth of family. The predictable pattern of life made the
rare moments of surprise especially memorable".
When Leon was eight his father saved up enough money to bring
his wife and children to live with him in Krakow. It was there where
he experienced wonders like indoor plumbing. It was also there he
would experience escalating hate and violence. Former friends
rejected him. Nazis beat his father viciously and took him off into
the night.
As he grew up Leon experienced what no child should ever have
to. He lost two brothers and the whole of his extended family. In
the ghetto and concentration camp he lived in a world of starvation,
illness, death, and the constant fear of random cruelty. In an
especially graphic episode he tells of his brother having to dig up
rotting corpses from mass garaves to burn them.
Leon also experienced the kindness of Oskar Schindler, a
manufacturer who took incredible risks to save as many Jews as
possible. He was also someone who took a personal interest in his
Jewish people, addressing them by name, treating them with a decency
that was then law breaking. In one touching instance he seeks out
Leon's mother to tell her her son and husband are not being taken back
to a concentration camp.
I believe The Boy On The Wooden Box and others in its genre are
not only great literature, but moral imperatives for those of us who
take never again seriously. Sadly leaders too often very skillfully
blame scapegoats for all that goes wrong, portraying them as threats
to the rest of us. We must, not once but continuously, make the
conscious choice to embrace and defend common humanity rather than be
swept along in tidal waves of prejudice. Hitler got as far as he did
by convincing a lot of people that Jews were way less than sentient
beings.
On a personal note, tomorrow is Thanksgiving. In my emails I received
the story of a beautiful little girl trying to survive after the war.
Along with her home and father, she had lost peace and security. One
day she was amazed by a CARE package containing white paper, pencils
with erasers, toothbrushes and toothpaste. Enjoy the day but don't
just eat turkey and watch football. Please go beyond Thanksgiving to
Thanksliving, a constant awareness of all we have and the many
opportunities to share with those in need. (Thank you, Pastor Steve,
for this wonderful word!)
A great big shout out goes out to all in the past and present who take
huge risks to save others from man made perils. In their honor
tomorrow I will raise the most magnificent toast ever:
L'Chaim (to life)!
Julia Emily Hathaway



Sent from my iPod