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Pointing to the yellow star and the word JEW over his heart, he continued, “In spite of this, love is all that matters.
There he stood, already beyond my reach, my father, the center of my life, just labeled JEW.
We watched until the train was out of sight. I never saw my father again.
Why? Why did we walk like meek sheep to the slaughterhouse? Why did we not fight back? What had we to lose? Nothing but our lives. Why did we not run away and hide? We might have had a chance to survive. Why did we walk deliberately and obediently into their clutches? I know why. Because we had faith in humanity. Because we did not really think that human beings were capable of committing such crimes.
Why did we march? Why did we let them slaughter us? Why did we not try to fight back? What difference would it have made if they had killed some of us? We were dying anyway, and they would kill the survivors sooner or later in any case.
I did not feel cold or hungry, only lonely and sad.
From the window, in the early-morning light, I saw a church on a hill. The white flag of peace waved gently from its steeple. My throat tightened with emotion, and my tears fell on the dusty window sill. I watched how they did not soak into the dust, but remained like round clear crystals, and that was all I could think of in that great hour of my life!
As I stood nude, before a clean blue and white checkered man’s shirt was put on me, I realized abruptly that I possessed nothing, not even a stitch of clothing that I could call my own. I owned only the pictures of Papa, Mama, Arthur, and Abek that I had carried for three years.
Survival is both an exalted privilege and a painful burden.
I love this country as only one who has been homeless for so long can understand. I love it with a possessive fierceness that excuses its inadequacies, because I deeply want to belong. And I am still fearful of rejection, feeling I have no right to criticize, only an obligation to help correct.
I always wanted to impress upon them how wrong it is to seek a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
Life’s challenges and tragedies test us. Perhaps the one consolation to suffering is that it is a great instructor. Not always, but often, it teaches us empathy and wisdom. Most of all, it reveals that we are far stronger than we could have imagined.
