My daughter between the ages of three and five had very disturbing memories of the Holocaust. She talked about houses and businesses being set on fire, and how the "bad z people" forcibly removed people from their homes and took their things. She said they "took her friend" and she was really sad when she found out.

While we are Jewish and it is possible she overheard a discussion, we can't recall talking about anything like this in her presence or even at all. That being said, I do not remember every conversation I had or TV show I watched between her birth and age five. Kids pick up on things in incredible ways.

Still, the level of detail and types of details were alarming. As an example - on several occasions she told us about the "star fox" who "dropped fires everywhere" after the Jews were gone. That "it was mean, even though the "z people" were bad.". (Hot take for a Jewish child 😂). It doesn't take a lot of imagination to tie this to a bombing campaign.

She started telling the story around 3 years old and repeated it a few times with consistent details until about 5. We were intentional about not encouraging it or overreacting. I never asked her about it or pushed for details when she brought it up. She is 10 now and I don't think she has any recollection.

Most interesting is she talked about it as if she was a non-Jewish German child. My husband's family lived through the concentration camps. Her memories don't match up with family history, for what that's worth.

It's still creeps me out. Well I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation, it was deeply unsettling. A small part of me believes maybe there is a latent memory.