The author’s grandmother Ursula at 13 years old in 1937 (center) with her parents on a ship to the United States, escaping Nazi Germany
I became a mother unexpectedly in my early 20s, and when I say unexpectedly, I mean that two weeks after I found out I was pregnant I was holding a baby boy in my arms. The shock set in immediately, as I was truly unsure of what to do as he looked up at me with bright eyes.
With parenthood came moments of indescribable joy and growth and an eternal feeling of purpose — but it also opened the floodgates to postpartum depression and the loss of my own identity. In the following eight years after having Caleb, I welcomed two more children, my daughter, Mari, in 2012 and my youngest son, River, in 2017. As a mom of three, I have been privileged and honored to learn different things with and from each of them. Something no one tells you about, though — probably because it’s too complicated to explain — is the struggle to hold on to who you were before you became a parent. The threads that sew your very being will slowly untie, and sometimes they slip away altogether after having children.
The author’s aunt Judy, grandmother Ursula, uncle Daniel, and mother, Nancy, in 1958
After my partner and I brought River home from the NICU, I stopped working. During that time, I took on the project of collecting old family photos to save to “the cloud.” What began as an idea to protect and catalog our legacy of pre-World War II images ended up being the very thing that helped me remember who I am.
Many of the photos are from my mother’s childhood, images of happy children feeding ducks in their backyard pond or of all three siblings sitting on the lap of a strong-jawed man with piercing eyes — my grandfather, Rudolph — after he’s spent a long day working in the family deli. Others reveal my grandmother Ursula’s show-stopping beauty, her hair always done and pearls resting prominently around her neck. What these images do not explain, though, is the pain and suffering my grandparents and great-grandparents endured not even 20 years prior.
My mother is a first-generation American. Both of her parents — whose upper-class Jewish families were best friends in Wuppertal, Germany, long before they got married — enjoyed bustling social lives, had successful businesses and were involved in activities with their respective synagogues.
When Adolf Hitler rose to power, it became evident to my grandparents that in order to save the lives of their children and future generations, they would have to escape Germany. Both families secured passage to the U.S., but not without dangerous escapes in the middle of the night, my grandmother’s sister, Marianne, being sent away to Palestine as a teen to ensure her safety, and a series of hurried goodbyes to relatives and loved ones who would never be seen again.
Stuck to the thin pages of my mom’s oldest photo album — a weathered black-and-brown bound book that once belonged to my grandmother — are images of what life was like before my ancestors knew this pain. Snapshots of my great-grandparents and their friends at the park, school portraits, family birthday celebrations, and quirky, silly images from Purim parties long ago.
(From left) The author's great-great-grandmother Ida Hirsch, great-great-aunts Paula Hirsch and Leni Hirsch, and great-grandmother Rosel. All but Rosel perished in the Holocaust.
When I was 10, I remember sitting down with my mom to look at that album for the first time, and with each careful turn of the page, she would point and tell me who survived the Holocaust and who did not. As a child, it was hard to imagine what it was like to live back then, but as an adult, and now as a parent, it is even more harrowing to fathom being separated from your young children or watching your parents be marched to their deaths.
Each time I scan one of these images into my computer, I feel like I’m validating the existence of the people in them. It’s almost as if their souls have purpose again, and I’m being granted permission to finally share their stories. When the Nazis imprisoned Jews, they were stripped of their names and tattooed with numbers that would then define them in concentration camps. My job now is to blow those numbers to metaphoric smithereens and to celebrate their place in helping me come into existence.
My mom always recounts the emotional story of the moment when her mother and her aunt Marianne — whom my daughter is named after — were reunited in America. As the ship pulled into port in New York City from England, my grandmother anxiously waited for her sister to walk off. When their eyes locked from what could have been a quarter-mile-long dock, they both took off running, high heels and all, diving into a heart-wrenching embrace. They had not seen each other for 15 years.
I’d like to think that every one of my ancestors I scan back to life is able to have that same reunion with their loved ones, numberless, with hearts free from pain in the afterlife.
The very act of motherhood that had led to me losing my identity also led to me finding my purpose in life. My threads that were once undone and floating around in space are now tied in a pretty bow. I am here to tell the story of my family, and this is only the beginning.
Lauren Volkes is a full-time mom and family photographer who spends her time caring for her three children and researching her family history.
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