Memoirs

Never Forgetting
My personal battle with drug
addiction during the Holocaust

by H.Jon Benjamin

I was awoken by fractal light pouring through the portal-shaped window of my family's Strasbourg house. Pushing in. Light. Morning light. Today would not be like any other day. The Gestapo was performing door to door searches and it was only a matter of time before they knocked on 411 Rue de Marachelle Foch, home of M. and Mme. Benjamin, my family. There was a looming tension, like a haze, thick and heavy. My father, despite the rumors, felt sure he could negotiate with them, reach some agreement, appeal to their better judgement...something, anything. They would see our family and surely, they would make an exception. He sat at the kitchen table shuffling through papers, smoking his pipe. Short, rhythmic puffs. Smoke creeped through the air, languishing in ribboned layers up and up and up and the light mixed in with it and together they danced. There was a smell. It lingered always--cherries and cedar wood and tonka beans. My mother sat in her rocking chair, nervously sewing a sweater for baby hubert. Hubert was turning two in the fall. i was nine years old. I sat in my room, shaking. It had been ten hours since my last fix and i needed a boost. i knew it would be risky to go out and score with the gestapo patrolling the street, but i had no control over my impulse to need to feel high. I stiffly walked into my parents bedroom, trying to conceal any outward appearance of detox-ing. My bones felt like rusty metal. My mouth was dry, like i had poured flour in it. Dry mouth. The left side of my head was pulsating with a dull pain which ebbed and abated with every beat of my addict heart. My mouth was dry. My bones ached. Mouth dry. Shaking. I opened their bedroom drawer and tucked behind some papers there was a stack of 20 franc notes my father was saving to bribe the gestapo. I took 100 francs. i needed heroin. i didn't need my family. A knock at the door, heavy and resonant. I dropped the money on the floor and it fell like snowflakes onto the wide pine planks.

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				Never Forgetting My personal battle with drug addiction during the Holocaust by H.Jon Benjamin I was awoken by fractal light pouring through the portal-shaped window of my family's Strasbourg house. Pushing in. Light. Morning light. Today would not be like any other day. The Gestapo was performing door to door searches and it was only a matter of time before they knocked on 411 Rue de Marachelle Foch, home of M. and Mme. Benjamin, my family. There was a looming tension, like a haze, thick and heavy. My father, despite the rumors, felt sure he could negotiate with them, reach some agreement, appeal to their better judgement...something, anything. They would see our family and surely, they would make an exception. He sat at the kitchen table shuffling through papers, smoking his pipe. Short, rhythmic puffs. Smoke creeped through the air, languishing in ribboned layers up and up and up and the light mixed in with it and together they danced. There was a smell. It lingered always--cherries and cedar wood and tonka beans. My mother sat in her rocking chair, nervously sewing a sweater for baby hubert. Hubert was turning two in the fall. i was nine years old. I sat in my room, shaking. It had been ten hours since my last fix and i needed a boost. i knew it would be risky to go out and score with the gestapo patrolling the street, but i had no control over my impulse to need to feel high. I stiffly walked into my parents bedroom, trying to conceal any outward appearance of detox-ing. My bones felt like rusty metal. My mouth was dry, like i had poured flour in it. Dry mouth. The left side of my head was pulsating with a dull pain which ebbed and abated with every beat of my addict heart. My mouth was dry. My bones ached. Mouth dry. Shaking. I opened their bedroom drawer and tucked behind some papers there was a stack of 20 franc notes my father was saving to bribe the gestapo. I took 100 francs. i needed heroin. i didn't need my family. A knock at the door, heavy and resonant. I dropped the money on the floor and it fell like snowflakes onto the wide pine planks. Next Page