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taking on a bearable course. The early confusion changed into a harmonious hustle and bustle. Together we prepare meals, eat at long tables, retire for the night, and rise for prayers. The mood is shifting to optimistic, even confident. There is a hopeful tone to the rhythm of life. The worst is over. We have been uprooted from our homes; our property was confiscated; we have been humiliated, herded and crowded like cattle into an enclosure, stared at from behind a fence like animals in a zoo. Yet, God in His mercy made it all manageable. And bearable. We know we are not cattle or captured beasts in a zoo. We have carved a dignified lifestyle out of our confines. We are going to make it. We are making it!
    I learn to like the ghetto. Here I have met more people I can identify with than ever before. Girls my age. Good-looking guys just a little older than me. Well-dressed ladies. Impressive men. Adorable kids.
    And they are all so exposed to you. Their intimate habits are open to your observation. Families at their dinner table, families washing up for the night, families playing with their children, mothers suckling their infants, fathers studying with their sons, embraces, scoldings, tears, laughter, cries of pain and joy. And lines for the toilet. All in the synagogue yard.
    I relish it all. I am part of every life. And every life is part of mine. I’m a limb of a larger body.
    I enjoy the toilet line most. It’s long and slow moving. One has time to connect, and talk. There’s so much to learn. So many people with so many stories.
    For the first time in my life, I am happy to be a Jew. And I am happy to share this peculiar condition of Jewishness. The handsome boys, lively women, beautiful babies, gray-bearded old men—all in the same yard of oppression, together.
    The cock-feathered policemen who had trampled on our sofas and our self-esteem, the Gentile neighbors who were afraid to say goodbye, the Jancsi Nováks, the kind, gentle friends who have not attempted to send a note of sympathy, the peasant wagon drivers who dutifully accepted wages from us for delivering us to the enemy, the villagers who lined the roads and watched the carts taking us to the prison compound, and kept their silence . . . they all are on the other side of the fence. A tall fence separates us. A world separates us because they do not understand.
    But we, on this side of the fence, we understand. We put up sheets around bathtubs in the yard in order to take baths. We cook on open stoves. We stand in long lines for the toilet. No friendship or love binds as this deep, spontaneous, easy mutuality.
    I fall in love again in the ghetto. His name is Pinhas. He’s a tall, thin, pale boy with large dark eyes.
    One day, as I sit in the yard on a pile of firewood and write, I notice him watching me. I am copying my poems into a notebook I brought from home.
    I have over one hundred poems. My first poem, about aship tossed by angry waves on a stormy sea, attracted my teacher’s attention and she included it in the annual Mother’s Day program. I recited it to an appreciative audience, and became an instant celebrity of sorts at the age of eight. The epithet “poet” was added to my name, and I was invited to recite my poetry at all kinds of public functions.
    Being a “poet” is central to my self-image, my aspirations and dreams. I write about nature, historical figures, my moods. I write almost constantly, often feverishly.
    My poems are all very sad. Pain is their common denominator.
    “Why? Why all this Weltschmerz?” Mommy would ask, somewhat puzzled, somewhat indignant. “Why don’t you write cheerful little verses about trees, birds, kittens? Why the lurking tragedy behind every blade of grass?”
    “Because she is a true poet,” Father would reply. “The true poet knows life is laced with pain. Human life is fashioned for tragedy.”
    My poems have been scribbled on scraps of paper, and now I am copying them all into one notebook. I