Ken Poirot's Blog - Posts Tagged "survive"
Give Compassion: Death in Poland and Germany...
There are many stories I remember from my career both as a financial services representative (financial advisor) as well as from managing financial advisors.
Yet, one story sticks out in my mind above all others.
It was my first job as a financial advisor working for a bank. I had been with the bank for about three months and a gentleman left his card at the front desk asking the teller about buying some US Treasuries.
The gentleman had an office in the same building as the bank; the bank was only leasing about half the first floor of that particular building.
Everyone in the branch knew the gentleman was very wealthy, yet his business with the bank averaged about $15,000 a month in a checking account. That was the total extent of his relationship with the bank.
Everything is relative in life...for a gentleman worth hundreds of millions of dollars, that was not much of a relationship with the bank...it was obvious the bulk of his business was somewhere else.
All the bankers knew the gentleman; he had a reputation for being quick-tempered and difficult. Other professionals the bankers knew had told them stories about bad experiences working with him, sudden outbursts, extreme anger, and renegotiating hourly billing/fees after services had already been rendered.
I also found out the previous financial advisor who had worked at my location for over five years had met with him multiple times. They had never done any business together.
One of the senior bankers gave me a great piece of information right before my meeting, he said, "Did you see the tattoo on his wrist?"
It was a good observation because I had not noticed it, nor did I have any idea what kind of tattoo it could have been.
I said, "No." ...the senior banker looked at me and said, "It is a tattoo from a Nazi concentration camp...he is a World War II concentration camp survivor."
I was fairly young at the time. I had studied some about the World War II concentration camps and seen some of the horrible photos...but I had never met anyone who had survived or been through such a horrific experience.
I said "Thank you" to the senior banker and proceeded to my meeting with at least some idea this gentleman had an unimaginably terrible past.
My goal with him was the same goal I have with anyone I meet:
...ask questions, listen, let the person know I care about their situation, and offer assistance if I can.
True empathy and caring is the one trait that is either part of someone's DNA or it isn't.
You can't train someone how to care or teach someone to be a caring person if it is just not part of their nature.
Whenever I interview or hire employees, I specifically ask questions to see if the candidate exhibits characteristics of high empathy; a deep-rooted, sincere caring for others.
I can train someone to be more productive, I can train someone to be more effective, or more proficient at their job...but I cannot train someone to care who just does not have it within themselves.
Similarly, in personal relationships, you can't expect empathy or care from someone who is just not a caring person; they will not change.
If someone hurts you, does not care about your feelings, and displays no empathy for you or others...it is best to reconsider that relationship.
You can't turn someone into a caring person who does not have caring or empathy as part of their DNA. If you are with a selfish person who does not care about you or your feelings...they will never become a giving, caring, loving person.
Through the coming months and years in my relationship with this gentleman, I learned of the true horrors of life in a Nazi Germany concentration camp. One can never fully imagine or understand the experience, but only listen in dread to the every day atrocities.
I learned he was in hiding with his family in Poland during the German invasion and occupation. He, his mother, his father, older brother, and youngest brother.
They knew they were putting other people at risk, the families who were harboring them, so they decided to hand themselves over to the Nazi's. They had no idea, nor did anyone at the time, what the Nazi's were really doing to the Jews they rounded up and captured.
The last day he saw his mother and youngest brother was that day, the day they turned themselves in; his mother and youngest brother were taken to a different concentration camp and he never saw them again.
His father and oldest brother were transferred over and over again to four different concentration camps in five years. He said the worst experiences were the train rides from camp to camp. People packed in, as many as could fit in a sealed train car in the searing heat of summer. People defecating, peeing, literally dying and laying on each other, corpses decaying for hours and hours in the sweltering heat.
The most excruciating part he said, was the constant hunger and thirst every day. People eating rocks in the field just to put something in their stomachs. A cup of turnip soup the only sustenance for anyone, self digesting, starving with hunger and thirst, day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute, second after second...literally the hunger and thirst driving people mad.
As he told me, death was something you saw, experienced, and lived with each day. People dying from sickness,weakened by starvation, dehydration, or from being shot right next to you by a guard.
Feeling the sound of the gun reverberate through your ears and chest, as your ears rang and you felt the blood spatter on your face. You dare not move or even look anywhere but straight ahead for fear you would be the next one shot just for blinking.
In the final moments of his incarceration, the Nazi's took the remaining survivors on a "death march." The Allies were coming and they were evacuating the concentration camp.
He was with his father and oldest brother...they were all together and had survived five years of hell during the Holocaust.
He offered to carry a backpack for one of the German soldiers, in exchange for some kindness...in hopes for a piece of bread.
The soldier offered him some bread and when he returned to sit and share it with his oldest brother and father...the soldiers tried to physically restrain him and stop him. They asked him loudly in German, "What are you doing? That was for you, not them!"
He explained...the two men are his father and oldest brother. The soldier called all the other soldiers over and they pointed and marveled...speaking in German. They were shocked any family members related to each other had made it out alive together. The German soldiers were amazed by this. They allowed him to share his tiny piece of bread with his brother and father.
The Allies came...they were finally freed and liberated.
The next memory he shared with me was the feeling he had sitting down on a curb in New York City after having just arrived in the United States. He recalled eating a sardine sandwich and that it was the best, most satisfying, and greatest tasting moment of his life. After years of starvation and thirst, that could and did literally drive people insane...the sensation of eating...the texture, the feeling of real food in his mouth was the best memory of his life.
It is also important to remember. All these people in the Nazi concentration camps...these were just average people.
These people, men, women, and children who lived through this experience and those who died...they were not soldiers. They were just average citizens who were one day stripped of their freedom and made to endure these atrocities in the Nazi concentration camps.
That is what I was thinking when I wrote this quote, “Give Compassion: Every day the average person fights epic battles never told just to survive.”
You just do not know what someone has been through in their life. When you meet someone, if they are mean, terse, or a bit nasty to you...there is always a reason why.
Try to find the reason...ask, listen, care...give compassion. It makes all the difference in the world. You will be surprised how quickly some people will change their tone if you just ask, listen, and show real, sincere empathy.
So what if my client, the Holocaust survivor, could be a bit difficult, angry, or cantankerous at times? After all the epic battles he fought in his life...he had more than earned the right to be angry or distrustful of his fellow man.
He had seen and lived through the worst of humanity...horrors you or I could never truly understand or ever fully imagine.
Ask, listen, and give compassion!
For the reasons written above, I chose a US military photo for this photo quote. It was taken after liberating those who had lived through, suffered, and experienced the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp. In this case the camp's name is Gusen (Austria).
Look into the eyes of the gentleman in the photo and remember my client's personal story.
Remember this photo when you encounter someone who is a bit upset, angry, or even downright mean. Just remember, you don't know "the epic battles never told" that person may have been through in their life just to survive.
Ask, listen,...give compassion!
Below is the photo quote:
https://www.goodreads.com/photo/autho...
Ken Poirot
Warmly,
Ken Poirot
Yet, one story sticks out in my mind above all others.
It was my first job as a financial advisor working for a bank. I had been with the bank for about three months and a gentleman left his card at the front desk asking the teller about buying some US Treasuries.
The gentleman had an office in the same building as the bank; the bank was only leasing about half the first floor of that particular building.
Everyone in the branch knew the gentleman was very wealthy, yet his business with the bank averaged about $15,000 a month in a checking account. That was the total extent of his relationship with the bank.
Everything is relative in life...for a gentleman worth hundreds of millions of dollars, that was not much of a relationship with the bank...it was obvious the bulk of his business was somewhere else.
All the bankers knew the gentleman; he had a reputation for being quick-tempered and difficult. Other professionals the bankers knew had told them stories about bad experiences working with him, sudden outbursts, extreme anger, and renegotiating hourly billing/fees after services had already been rendered.
I also found out the previous financial advisor who had worked at my location for over five years had met with him multiple times. They had never done any business together.
One of the senior bankers gave me a great piece of information right before my meeting, he said, "Did you see the tattoo on his wrist?"
It was a good observation because I had not noticed it, nor did I have any idea what kind of tattoo it could have been.
I said, "No." ...the senior banker looked at me and said, "It is a tattoo from a Nazi concentration camp...he is a World War II concentration camp survivor."
I was fairly young at the time. I had studied some about the World War II concentration camps and seen some of the horrible photos...but I had never met anyone who had survived or been through such a horrific experience.
I said "Thank you" to the senior banker and proceeded to my meeting with at least some idea this gentleman had an unimaginably terrible past.
My goal with him was the same goal I have with anyone I meet:
...ask questions, listen, let the person know I care about their situation, and offer assistance if I can.
True empathy and caring is the one trait that is either part of someone's DNA or it isn't.
You can't train someone how to care or teach someone to be a caring person if it is just not part of their nature.
Whenever I interview or hire employees, I specifically ask questions to see if the candidate exhibits characteristics of high empathy; a deep-rooted, sincere caring for others.
I can train someone to be more productive, I can train someone to be more effective, or more proficient at their job...but I cannot train someone to care who just does not have it within themselves.
Similarly, in personal relationships, you can't expect empathy or care from someone who is just not a caring person; they will not change.
If someone hurts you, does not care about your feelings, and displays no empathy for you or others...it is best to reconsider that relationship.
You can't turn someone into a caring person who does not have caring or empathy as part of their DNA. If you are with a selfish person who does not care about you or your feelings...they will never become a giving, caring, loving person.
Through the coming months and years in my relationship with this gentleman, I learned of the true horrors of life in a Nazi Germany concentration camp. One can never fully imagine or understand the experience, but only listen in dread to the every day atrocities.
I learned he was in hiding with his family in Poland during the German invasion and occupation. He, his mother, his father, older brother, and youngest brother.
They knew they were putting other people at risk, the families who were harboring them, so they decided to hand themselves over to the Nazi's. They had no idea, nor did anyone at the time, what the Nazi's were really doing to the Jews they rounded up and captured.
The last day he saw his mother and youngest brother was that day, the day they turned themselves in; his mother and youngest brother were taken to a different concentration camp and he never saw them again.
His father and oldest brother were transferred over and over again to four different concentration camps in five years. He said the worst experiences were the train rides from camp to camp. People packed in, as many as could fit in a sealed train car in the searing heat of summer. People defecating, peeing, literally dying and laying on each other, corpses decaying for hours and hours in the sweltering heat.
The most excruciating part he said, was the constant hunger and thirst every day. People eating rocks in the field just to put something in their stomachs. A cup of turnip soup the only sustenance for anyone, self digesting, starving with hunger and thirst, day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute, second after second...literally the hunger and thirst driving people mad.
As he told me, death was something you saw, experienced, and lived with each day. People dying from sickness,weakened by starvation, dehydration, or from being shot right next to you by a guard.
Feeling the sound of the gun reverberate through your ears and chest, as your ears rang and you felt the blood spatter on your face. You dare not move or even look anywhere but straight ahead for fear you would be the next one shot just for blinking.
In the final moments of his incarceration, the Nazi's took the remaining survivors on a "death march." The Allies were coming and they were evacuating the concentration camp.
He was with his father and oldest brother...they were all together and had survived five years of hell during the Holocaust.
He offered to carry a backpack for one of the German soldiers, in exchange for some kindness...in hopes for a piece of bread.
The soldier offered him some bread and when he returned to sit and share it with his oldest brother and father...the soldiers tried to physically restrain him and stop him. They asked him loudly in German, "What are you doing? That was for you, not them!"
He explained...the two men are his father and oldest brother. The soldier called all the other soldiers over and they pointed and marveled...speaking in German. They were shocked any family members related to each other had made it out alive together. The German soldiers were amazed by this. They allowed him to share his tiny piece of bread with his brother and father.
The Allies came...they were finally freed and liberated.
The next memory he shared with me was the feeling he had sitting down on a curb in New York City after having just arrived in the United States. He recalled eating a sardine sandwich and that it was the best, most satisfying, and greatest tasting moment of his life. After years of starvation and thirst, that could and did literally drive people insane...the sensation of eating...the texture, the feeling of real food in his mouth was the best memory of his life.
It is also important to remember. All these people in the Nazi concentration camps...these were just average people.
These people, men, women, and children who lived through this experience and those who died...they were not soldiers. They were just average citizens who were one day stripped of their freedom and made to endure these atrocities in the Nazi concentration camps.
That is what I was thinking when I wrote this quote, “Give Compassion: Every day the average person fights epic battles never told just to survive.”
You just do not know what someone has been through in their life. When you meet someone, if they are mean, terse, or a bit nasty to you...there is always a reason why.
Try to find the reason...ask, listen, care...give compassion. It makes all the difference in the world. You will be surprised how quickly some people will change their tone if you just ask, listen, and show real, sincere empathy.
So what if my client, the Holocaust survivor, could be a bit difficult, angry, or cantankerous at times? After all the epic battles he fought in his life...he had more than earned the right to be angry or distrustful of his fellow man.
He had seen and lived through the worst of humanity...horrors you or I could never truly understand or ever fully imagine.
Ask, listen, and give compassion!
For the reasons written above, I chose a US military photo for this photo quote. It was taken after liberating those who had lived through, suffered, and experienced the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp. In this case the camp's name is Gusen (Austria).
Look into the eyes of the gentleman in the photo and remember my client's personal story.
Remember this photo when you encounter someone who is a bit upset, angry, or even downright mean. Just remember, you don't know "the epic battles never told" that person may have been through in their life just to survive.
Ask, listen,...give compassion!
Below is the photo quote:
https://www.goodreads.com/photo/autho...
Ken Poirot
Warmly,
Ken Poirot
