I Always Wondered How the Germans Continued Their Lives When the Horrors Happened Under Their Noses - Noa of the Sea
- Noa Maiman
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Published originally in Hebrew: Haaretz, Family and relationships section, May 28th, 2025.
Trauma bursts easily. Managing it is much harder. A few days ago, I read about the Israeli couple killed in a shooting attack in Washington, D.C. My son asked why I was crying. “I read something sad,” I answered, trying to change the subject.
Years ago, I pursued a master’s in Conflict Studies and Comparative Politics at the University of London—a progressive stronghold. Determined to find a way out of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, I zoomed out, comparing it to other conflicts.
When I started spotting patterns across conflicts, my father—a passionate Zionist who immigrated to Israel at 25—would scold me any time I criticized the country. “You don’t understand what it means to be without a homeland,” he would say, his face etched with pain no one talked about. Both his parents were Holocaust survivors. He was born in Germany, when the scent of the crematoria still lingered in the air. “You don’t know what it is to be a minority. For you, Israel is a given.”
My father died three and a half years ago. On October 7, I felt a strange relief that he wasn't here anymore. My grandmother—his mother—used to tell me about an argument she had with her father in the Warsaw Ghetto. He didn’t believe Jews were being taken away to die. He died a natural death in the ghetto—not murdered by the Nazis, nor by the cyanide pills my grandmother had prepared for the day of the Aktion (the Nazi roundup). He died on her wedding day. She saw it as a gift. As a child, I couldn’t understand how anyone could see their father’s death as a gift.
Years later, I chose that same date for my own wedding. I stood under the chuppah (the Jewish wedding canopy) and tearfully told the story of my great-grandfather, who had died a “natural” death in the ghetto. My grandmother always tried not to pass on her trauma. Now I’m trying not to pass on hers—or mine—to my children. But just like her, I’m failing.
Sometimes I take five-minute breaks with coffee. “I’m resting now,” I declare to my kids, trying to teach them to respect my space—our shared space on the boat. Instead of reading a book, I scroll through my feed.
Here’s a sweet 12-year-old girl, her father bursting with pride. I scroll further: a post by Adi Ronen Argov, an activist with 'Looking the Occupation in the Eye'—a human rights group. A photo of three smiling children, the oldest not even four. They’re dressed for a holiday. They’re already dead. If their parents are lucky, they’re dead too—and didn’t have to bury their children. These children—younger than my sons—are the 'noncombatants' reduced to 'collateral damage.' I try to push the thought away and keep scrolling.
A mother proudly introduces her newborn; her older child meets her for the first time.
I keep scrolling.
A badly injured child, the sole survivor of his family, undergoing surgery without anesthesia—his mother is not with him.
Tens of thousands dead.
Hundreds of thousands of starving children.
"One Family Here and One Family There"
“My tummy’s hungry,” my son tells me. He hasn’t eaten in an hour. He doesn’t actually know what hunger is. Neither do I. But my grandmother did.
How do you protect your child in those conditions? What does your body feel when your child screams from hunger and you can do nothing? What is it like to try to soothe them while part of you silently prays for death—to end the nightmare? What does a mother feel when she loses nine children?
A friend of mine has connected with a family in Gaza. She’s grown close to them, trying to help. I admire her. She’s scared for them, hopes they make it through another night. Both families have babies. Both families have a cat. One here, one there.
Now and then I post a photo of dead children—or smiling children who were alive just a week ago. I count to three, and the comments roll in: “Care about your own first! Go to Gaza already!” “I hope you get raped, you whore. Hope you die with them, traitor.”
The more eloquent haters write that compassion died with the massacre.
“I do care about my own,” I answer them—sometimes patiently, sometimes not. Because for all this blood we’re spilling, my people will pay too. Beyond the death and starvation—we, who know hunger, fear, and loss—will also face revenge.
“He’s just an extremist idiot,” they brush off anyone who dares say we’re killing too many children. “And besides, it’s wartime—every Arab baby is a future Hamas fighter.” As for the occupation? That’s a full-time profession. Don’t you dare call it a hobby.
“We have no choice but to starve and annihilate the Gazan population and conquer their land,” someone says.
Another says it’s a holy war in God’s name.
We are the Chosen People.
"What guilt?"
I always wondered how the Germans kept on living while the horrors happened beneath their noses. I used to believe that if enough sane people wanted to stop an atrocity—they could. I hadn’t considered the power of denial.
Once on a flight, I sat next to a young German—third generation, like me, only from the other side of history. “How do you live with the guilt?” I asked, genuinely curious—assuming they too still felt the war’s shadow.
“What guilt?” he shrugged, not understanding the question.
We are from Israel
We keep sailing. Lately, we sometimes avoid saying we’re from Israel. It wasn’t a decision—we just drifted into it. Partly out of shame, partly out of safety.
Every night, Tomer and I argue. He thinks the Israel we loved is gone. I still believe in miracles.
I so badly wanted to pass down a homeland my children could be proud of. But you can’t escape fate—certainly not by sailboat.
Noa Maiman - Filmmaker, writer, mother, and co-skipper. A PTSD survivor on a journey of healing, creator of the web series Toolkit for Rape Recovery. Living and sailing the Atlantic Ocean with her partner and their two young children aboard a catamaran since May 2021.
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