This summer has been dedicated to cleaning. I probably won’t be coming home for a while after I go back to school, so I’m trying to get my tangible life in order so that my head will be clear upon my return. I get a lot of satisfaction from throwing out things like awkward photographs from junior high and dopey letters from ex-friends. I am not a particularly sentimental person, and I derive a sense of triumph from every embarrassing student council ornament I toss out and every piece of broken art class pottery I stuff into a teeming garbage bag.

My mother does not derive the same amount of joy as I do from my figurative and literal cleaning. I often clean my room in private so that she isn’t hovering over my shoulder, sighing and complaining about how I’m throwing away my childhood and there are no photographs of me as a teenager and how will she ever remember what I looked like? I know it hurts her, but my trashing makes me feel better and makes me feel a little bit closer to college, the true embodiment of my victory over bad memories.   

I’m proud that I can now laugh in the face of adolescent awkwardness and the like, but my mom likes to save every gross school picture and loves every art project because these tokens all hold a much deeper meaning for her. But I argue that holding on to these things is getting in the way of me moving on.

The Web has been abuzz recently with the news that the now famous video of a family dancing at Auschwitz and other Holocaust-era landmarks to the tune of “I Will Survive” was pulled from YouTube, allegedly because of copyright issues. (Versions have since resurfaced on the site and can still be found elsewhere on the Internet.) In the video, Holocaust survivor Adolek Kohn, his daughter and grandchildren, dance at locations such as Auschwitz in Poland, a network of concentration camps where thousands of Jews perished at the hands of the Nazis. But in the video, 89-year-old Mr. Kohn in his “survivor” shirt and surrounded by loved ones, might as well be dancing at his daughter’s wedding. He is joyous and full of laughter, symbolically stomping on his oppressors.

The whole thing initially left a bad taste in my mouth. My Jewish roots aside, I was upset by the seemingly nonchalant attitude the family had. Yes, Mr. Kohn, you deserve this moment. After the horrors you’ve experienced, you have every right to dance as the Nazis burn in Hell. But what about those who didn’t make it? When will they get to dance their dance of vindication?

Mr. Kohn and his family do make some strong points about their decision to dance in the midst of memories of evil. He wanted to educate younger generations in a way in which they might relate, he said. He had the opportunity to bring his family, with whom he could celebrate life. His daughter put it the most beautifully. “We came from the ashes, now we dance,” she said. But I feel like that leaves out a huge chunk of the issue. What about those who didn’t survive?

I could never compare my lousy junior high/high school experience to the horrors of genocide. What Mr. Kohn has been through is beyond my wildest, darkest dreams, and I would feel foolish complaining next to a man who has seen the worst of humanity. But I can draw some parallels between our cathartic actions. The ways in which we deal with our pasts have not pleased everyone around us.

Everything I trash without my mother’s blessing feels like a small victory over any bitterness I still harbor. But I know I don’t take my mother’s feelings into account with every miniature act of defiance. After all, I’m the one starting a new life halfway across the country. She’s still here. I’m so over my collection of what I consider junk, but my trinkets, no matter from what stage in my life, mean a lot to her. I particularly hate saving photographs from bad days. “I know you didn’t like that day, but I love how you look in this picture,” she’ll say, and tuck it between the statuettes on her nightstand or prop it up on the dining room table. 

Don’t get me wrong. Mr. Kohn is a brave, empowered man. I am happy for him, and if this is how he chooses to rejoice, so be it. It's not like he's forgotten the millions of lives taken. He just chose to emphasize his personal victory. I may not have shown my triumph in the same way, but I have no idea what he’s been through, so it’s difficult, and many would say wrong, for me to judge. But no matter what the scale of the event, in healing, what is cathartic to some is cruel to others.