The Power of Testimony

’TIL WE MEET AGAIN
the radio. There would be no more delay, no more doubt.
America was at war.
✪
We weren’t the only family in America who felt weighed
down by a strange heaviness as Christmas 1941
approached. It was as if all the trees and the presents and
the food were somehow irrelevant—​ as if we were playing a
game when there was far more important work to be done.
All seven of us children were at home on Christmas Eve,
and it felt good to be under one roof again, taken care of by
Mom and Dad. For those of us old enough to understand
what was going on, there was one unanswerable question
hanging in the air: Would this be the last time such a
gather ing would be possible?
We sat in silence that evening, listening to the radio
as it relayed a special broadcast that featured Girl Scouts,
Boy Scouts, and eventually Winston Churchill. But what
I remember most was when President Roosevelt leaned
in toward the microphone and addressed the nation. His
speech perfectly articulated the trauma, confusion, and
anger felt by so many of us. Yet somehow he managed
to move from empathy to exhortation, urging people to
prepare for the year to come by preparing their hearts:
Therefore, I . . . do hereby appoint the first day of
the year 1942 as a day of prayer, of asking forgiveness
for our shortcomings of the past, of consecration to
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