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were also our enemies. It shattered our idea about Jews being seen as equal to others under communism.
    Because my grandfather was constantly harassed in the street about his beard, he stopped going out. Removed from his friends, he grew weak. One morning we were shocked to find him in a deep sleep from which he never awoke. My idol was dead. We knew that Grandpa had died because he lost his will to live. I understood that with him gone, my life would never be the same. The procession to the cemetery consisted of only the family, as others were forbidden to attend. All the mirrors in our house were covered, and we sat shivah for a week. Friends, at risk to themselves, came to make up the ten-man prayer service. I overheard them saying that they envied my grandfather for his peaceful death.
    A few days later Mother and I took a back road to the other side of the village. Halfway there, I noticed a former classmate of mine coming toward us. Like many of the others of German ancestry, he too had joined the Nazis. He wore a brown shirt with a red
Hakenkreuz
(swastika) armband. Presenting himself as a German, he sought to demonstrate his faithfulness to the Führer. Coming upon us, he pushed my mother, and she fell to the ground.
    I was shocked. I searched his face. “Otto, why are you doing this?” I demanded, outraged. In his eyes I saw sinister cruelty and mercilessness. The schoolmate of yesterday was a foe today.
    Then he began to use the common Nazi hate rhetoric. “You Jew swine, you pests, you war criminals.”
    I could see that he knew who we were, but he showed no remorse. He left us, still mumbling with enmity. My blood pounded in my temples. I thought that I should have ripped the swastika off his arm, but I was paralyzed, as if I had no command over my limbs. Pale and humiliated, Mama could not stop trembling, but fortunately she was not hurt. I could not comfort her. I had not defended her, and I felt a deep guilt. This incident convinced me how quickly people’s minds could be poisoned. This was a bad year, and the next one might be worse.
     

Chapter V
The Ghetto in Dobra
    G reed for Jewish booty
lured many followers to Hitler. Little by little, without pretense or restraint, the Nazis had taken our homes, our possessions, our hope, and our pride. And though each downward spiral seemed to take us to the lowest state imaginable, we were to learn that this abyss had no bottom.
    In the spring of 1940 we were ordered out of our house. We were the only Jewish family in the vicinity. Everything of ours—business, house, and land—was given to Anders, a Volksdeutscher who was a former worker of ours. His only credential was his heritage. The Judenrat then assigned us an attic room across the street in what was once a school. We were allowed to take one armful of possessions. Pola sneaked across to our house once more and rescued a few of her favorite books. Unsuited to running any business, Anders closed its doors shortly afterward. Nothing caused my mother more pain than looking down on her home, which now seemed so alien.
    The third-floor attic room, once used for storage, became our living quarters. Pola, Josek, and I slept on straw pallets on the floor. Mama and Papa had two cots. We hung blankets to create privacy.
    We continued to observe the Shabbat. Each Friday evening Mama lit candles and recited the prayer. Papa, acting as if not much had changed, kept saying, “Nothing is lost. It’s all only temporary. When the war is over we’ll move back to our house, and everything will be as before.”
    At the end of March 1940 the birds returned. Nature was taking its course early that year. On one sunny day, as I stood in the school yard, five Germans in army uniforms rounded the corner of the school. This was odd, I thought. What could they want? No one except the former caretaker and ourselves lived in the schoolhouse. As the Germans walked toward me, a corporal, their leader, sternly asked if I was Bronek