PERHAPS THE BEGINNING

1942: the soldiers were already in the courtyard, calling their names. It was early in the morning, very early, five in the morning, in July, I think. Or perhaps August. Hard to remember now. The mother quietly awoke the boy. He was twelve then. She was crying softly. Sssh, Sssh, we must save the boy, she said as she gently pushed him into a closet. He was wearing his little boy shorts. A closet just outside the door of the apartment, on the landing, on the third floor. It is impossible to tell now if this is invented or merely remembered. A dark box where they stored old clothes, empty skins, dusty hats, he calls, them, and old newspapers. And after the soldiers took away his mother, his father, and also his two sisters, stumbling down the staircase with their bundles, nomad bundles is how he describes them, moaning yellow stars on their way to their final solution, to be made, unmade to shade the light, and all was quiet, the little boy sat on a pile of newspap…