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An hour later, after exchanging my wet clothes for dry ones, I notice that the sun has broken through the heavy overcast and is shining directly onto my desk, inviting me to sit down and begin the laborious, one word at a time task of translating a letter, written in the tiniest possible handwriting by someone named Irina.
Our Dearest Rachael,
I am sorrowfully writing with sad news. Your mother’s brother, who is also my husband and your Uncle Levi, and your cousin, my dear son Avram, have been taken by Hitler’s Gestapo. They came in the night, but we had been expecting this, so were not sleeping soundly. Levi told them he is an old man so they could have him and did not put up a fight. Avram fought back and was beaten without mercy. Washing his blood from our rug is impossible. Still, some remains.
Since Kristallnacht, which I have already written you about in the best details I can offer, more and more Jews are being shot in the streets or put on trains to what they call work camps. Many more are starving. No one who has been taken away has ever returned, and the rumors about what happens to them all end in death. Isaac says now his brother is taken, he is fighting back, says not to worry, then kisses me goodbye and leaves. I hear nothing from him since… and expect to know nothing of Levi or Avram for a long time. They will come for our Lazar soon, and then Jacob, as he is now old enough to cause trouble. When he goes, all my beloved sons are gone from me.
Your cousin Minna, born to me when I was too old, is slow and clumsy, yet a loving comfort to me. There are rumors the Reich is making lists of those who are in some way afflicted, both Jews and non-Jews, and will take them away to what they call rehabilitation camps. If this is true, Minna will certainly be on that list. There is a convent of Catholic nuns near Hannover willing to take in children, and am sending her there, hoping money you have sent is enough they will not refuse her because she is a Jew. Otherwise, I am unable to protect her, and she cannot survive on her own like the rest of us might be able to do, if G-d wills it be so.
I give to you the yellow star from Levi’s coat because I have other things to remember him by. I keep my son’s star for myself. If we never see them again, which Lazar thinks we won’t, or if we all perish, which is more likely each day, you must bear witness that we once lived and were faithful Jews brave in the face of hatred we don’t understand. If it is the Jewish destiny to suffer, we have no choice but to accept this life sentence.
I stop translating as the reality of my relationship to the letter’s writer vice-grips my stomach and I can barely breathe. I put on my winter coat and wrap my longest wool scarf around myself, then leave my apartment in the direction of the lake shore. After nearly an hour of wandering aimlessly along the waterline, the biting wind begins forcing clarity into the foreign words I never thought I would be reading, much less hold such profound personal meaning to me. Obviously, my mother was the product of a German-Jewish heritage that barely survived its face-to-face encounter with evil in an era I am vaguely aware of but also apparently deeply connected to and, from this moment forward, will be impossible to dismiss, bury, or ignore. I have no idea how to think about this, or how what I have just learned will change my life, but have no doubt that it will.
I
never saw this coming… I tell myself.
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| 2025 annual awards |
| The story of the events that led to The Battle of Hastings in 1066 Harold the King (UK edition) I Am The Chosen King (US edition) AND 1066 Turned Upside Down an anthology of 'What If'' 1066 tales  |
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