History of Sorts

Your killing me did not stop your hate. Hate is like a disease, a cancer—it eats at you bit by bit, and the more you hate, the sicker you get. Hate is like a tumour in your head. It drives you insane up to the point that you don’t even realize anymore that killing an 8-month-old baby is an act of depravity.

I am Ivan Rozenbaum, born in Romania. I was 8 months young when you killed me in Auschwitz. Your hate died with you, but love for me grows stronger every day.

When people see my face, they are equally amused and saddened. Amused because who doesn’t smile when they see the innocence of an infant, and saddened because they cannot comprehend the hate that killed me.

I am Ivan Rozenbaum, forever remembered as a product of love between two people.

Didn’t you realize that your birth was the result of an act of love? If there had been no love, there had been no you. Yet you wasted your time and energy with hate.

You should have spent your time learning about me and my people. We did not ask for you to become like us—all we wanted was your respect and for you to accept us. We will never become special by being the same, it is our differences that make us special. But your hate stopped you from seeing this. Your colour was black and white and you missed out on all those colours in between.

Do I feel sorry for you? No! I pity you and the pathetic ideology you followed. An ideology based on hate. If you had only had the epiphany that, “Love is the strongest weapon you have,” yet you never used it.

I am Ivan Rozenbaum, and it saddens me that so many decades after my murder, some people still are not able to use that powerful weapon called love.

There is no place for hate in this world. But alas, some are so eager to create some space for hate. But hate will never win. It might win a few battles—but never the war.