If you allow it to, the world will break your heart every single day of your life.

But what is even worse is that sometimes, it seems as though the only way to avoid heartbreak is to harden your heart and no matter how terrible the news you hear, just tell yourself that it doesn't affect you or your family.

I grew up hating a major part of my own heritage -- the German part -- because of Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust. It took me a lot of years, and two years living in Austria in the '70s, before I was able to see that people aren't really that different in different parts of the world. Put them in a position where they're afraid and they'll react badly.

[caption id="attachment_916" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Vienna"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/1970165.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-916" title="1970165" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/1970165-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" /></a>[/caption]

But I don't know if there was a day during the time I lived in Vienna that I didn't remember that Austria was the country that gave the world Hitler.

I'm not Jewish, but I have Jewish relatives on my father's side and I have read extensively about the H