The Light in Hidden Places

by Sharon Cameron

Mr. Diamant shook his head. “Di velt iz sheyn nor di mentshn makhn zi mies,” he said. “The world is beautiful, but people make it ugly.”

“This war was started by Jews!” the man on the crate yelled. He was pointing at the people, his face red and sweating. “They bankrupt our country, starve our children. Your families will not be safe, this war will never end, until every … last … Jew … is dead!”

The misguided ideas of a misguided leader who in turn was misguiding his army and his people. Hadn’t there always been people who were poor and hungry? People who were hated and despised? Hadn’t there always been wars where the young men fought and the innocent died? It

What I saw was the joy of hate. The happiness of causing another person’s death and pain. What I saw was evil. And every part of me defied it.

I learned three things from Emilika that day: First, walk as if you have important business, and most people will assume you do. Second, always have your hair curled. And third, help can come when it’s least expected, and that’s good to remember, because it means you’re never really alone.

His parents would never need tea. Because the trains were going to place called Bełżec, and Bełżec was not a work camp, you stupid Jew. Bełżec was one great killing machine. Max stopped talking, staring straight ahead, and I stepped out of line and stood in the traffic of the sidewalk. We were nearly to the coal yard. Mr. and Mrs. Diamant. They were dead. All those men, women, and children I had seen being put on the trains. They were dead. We were still living. But we must have been living in hell.

Fear comes with the dark when you’re lying still, waiting for the knock on the door. And fear is not always reasonable.

Jew. Catholic. German. Pole. But these were the wrong names. They were the wrong dividing lines. Kindness. Cruelty. Love and hate. These were the borders that mattered. Przemyśl had shown me my place on the map.

death is a shadow at the edge of every light, I discover that I have to smile.

We just shiver, my stomach grumbling, and as soon as Helena is asleep, I let myself cry. Hard. For everyone who’s gone. The boy hit with the rifle, the blue-eyed girl shot in the street, and Ernestyna Diamant, whom I never even met. I cry for Max and Danuta, and for Henek, because grief takes all forms. But the truth is, I’m mostly crying for myself. Because I’m sad, frustrated,

hungry, and defeated. Because failure is something I don’t know how to do.

He chose life. And that makes him nothing like them at all.

I don’t want to love anyone. Not during a war. Love will make me hurt.

“We’re always living days we can never get back,” I say. “So we make new ones. That’s all.”

And now the Russian soldier takes me from Max, picks me up around the waist, and bounces me up and down. “Hero!” he shouts. “Hero, hero!” And the rest of his men shout with him.