Chapter 1
My father was crying. It was the first time I saw him cry. I had never thought it possible. As for my mother, she was walking, her face a mask, without a word, deep in thought. I looked at my littl...
Chapter 2
Mrs. Schächter had lost her mind. On the first day of the journey she had already begun to moan. She kept asking why she had been separated from her family. Later, her sobs and screams became...
Chapter 3
"Men to the left! Women to the right!" Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight simple, short words. Yet that was the moment when I left my mother. There was no time to thi...
Chapter 4
Franek, the foreman, assigned me to a corner. "Don't kill yourself. There’s no hurry. But watch out. Don’t let an SS catch you." "Please sir ... I’d like to be near my father." "A...
Chapter 5
What are You, my God? I thought angrily. How do You compare to this stricken mass gathered to affirm to You their faith, their anger, their defiance? What does Your grandeur mean, Master of the Uni...
Chapter 6
He [Rabbi Eliahu] had lost his son in the commotion. He had searched for him among the dying, to no avail. Then he had dug through the snow to find his body. In vain. For three years, they had stay...
Chapter 7
My father had huddled near me, draped in his blanket, shoulders laden with snow. And what if he were dead, as well? I called out to him. No response. I would have screamed if I could have. He was n...
Chapter 8
I tightened my grip on my father's hand. The old, familiar fear: not to lose him. […] I could have screamed in anger. To have lived and endured so much; was I going to let my father die now?...
Chapter 9
One day when I was able to get up, I decided to look at myself in the mirror on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating...