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I am beginning to get used to the years of war. We seem to struggle through the same journey from first of January to first of January, in a nightmare that is itself beginning…
It is possible, it is very possible, that here it is impossible to live, but here we must remain, here we must die, sleep…there is no other place…—Y. H. Brenner
For Elie Wiesel
Not literally. Due to my father’s foresight (he had shown it when leaving Vienna in 1924), I came to America in January 1940, during the phony war. We left France, where I was born and…
For the past few years, both in France and Germany, I was awed by the valiant struggle of people who, though only recently liberated from indescribable cruelty, exhibited extraordinary powers of…
Sunday, November 1 [1942], it was announced in the order of the day that all policemen must assemble at twenty minutes past two in the premises of the former Slobodka Yeshive for a solemn oath-taking…
The end of summer is approaching and we can feel it. The days are still hot, but in the evening, there is a strange smell, the smell of leaves decaying and smoke, the smell of autumn…
Before continuing my story about the events in Pinsk in the summer of 1940, I would like to digress briefly into the realm of the miraculous. Let us imagine the impossible—something fantastic and…
Not seldom, when in conversation my partner draws me into a plural—that is, as soon as he includes my person in whatever connection and says to me: “We Jews . . .”—I feel a not exactly tormenting, but…
As I thought, I couldn’t manage it the next day, or the day after that. I continued to struggle to write even after three days. And now, too (four days later), I didn’t think I’d…
With zeal and zest I threw myself into the work to help assemble archive materials. I was entrusted to be the custodian, I hid the material. Besides me, no one knew. I confided only in my friend Hersh…