I suppose that the most important thing I learned from my parents was something very different from what other kids learned from the people who raised them during different times.
I was very lucky. I was raised by my parents and not by strangers. It was less lucky, though, that my first 14 years came during historical times, stressful years, and with an unknown future. In such situations, parents had different thoughts, advice, and plans. Survival was their priority—at any price, I suppose. They felt the necessity to provide tools and methods.
In our wildest dreams, we could not have imagined the situations we would later find ourselves in. No preparation or advice, no training, and no tools or skills could have helped us to survive the Holocaust.
The importance of what I learned from my parents was different in my situation because of the timing.
My mother was very particular about personal and environmental hygiene and cleanliness, which became impossible in the camps. Punctuality as a fact and as a sign of respect to whom it concerned was lost, too. I was told and taught to be responsible for my sister. Responsibility in general—honesty, straightforwardness, transparency, always, in every situation. All this lost not only its importance, but also the possibility of ever applying any of it in the camps.
So the question of how I think I learned those traits and whether they served me well became hypothetical in those times and situations. After the liberation, though, all that changed. It took time for me to realize these values, the expectations for me, my possibilities, and choices. When decision making returned, it took time to understand the results of wrong decisions and wrong choices.
The fact that I was free was the most important thing for me. Everything else was secondary.
Yes, I am sure that skill, trait, or disposition has served me very well!
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