Remembering my childhood, specifically my second grade class in Germany, each student was allocated a small lot and instructed to plant vegetables—lettuce, radishes, beans, and tomatoes. I thought, now, why can’t I do that on my otherwise useless lot?
On a Friday afternoon in September, I started coughing. I thought it was no big deal.
A friend was driving in Slovakia recently and noticed the Tatry Mountains in the distance. She remembered that I had talked about being there, and so she sent me a picture. The picture immediately reminded me of great old times.
“The big fight will be on the radio tonight,” my stepfather said. “We can listen. It will not be for long.” I tried to comprehend what was happening. He didn’t speak directly to me very often, and almost never about something we would do together.
The story of how Grandpa became a movie mogul is as unlikely as its ending was abrupt.
We were now together in New York and had escaped from Germany, but our problems were not over.
My dad was a survivor of both Auschwitz and Buchenwald. After liberation, as he traveled home to Mukačevo, he left a message in every city along the way for anyone in the family who had survived.
I am standing now at the railroad station of the small village where I reside with a Polish family.
In 1948, my father, sister, and I were sponsored by my family living in New York City and obtained visas to immigrate to the United States.
Watch videos and read articles about the Holocaust and the conditions that made it possible.
