What World is Left Read Free Page A

men with long side locks—as if they lived on Mars.
    That is about all Judaism means to me. That and the dry crackers Mother sometimes offered us in springtime. “Matzoh,” she called them. All I knew was that the crackers tasted awful until they were slathered with a thick layer of sweet butter and sprinkled with sugar.
    Judaism is a subject I never thought much about before the war. I was too busy living my life, going to school, meeting up with friends and reading poetry. As for God—what need had I for Him?
    Now that I’m in Theresienstadt, I’ve decided it’s a good thing I was never a believer. Otherwise I’d have lost my faith in God. What kind of God would make the skin on an ordinary girl’s fingers burn from scrubbing? What kind of God would invent latrines and guards with guns? No, I’m glad I have no faith to lose.
    When we learned from Sara’s family about the mistreatment of German Jews, we thought it was disgraceful, but we never worried for ourselves. Holland was far from Germany, and besides, wouldn’t the many dikes on the coast of our little country keep us safe?
    When we were younger, before Theo was old enough for school, the two of us would play in Father’s studio while Mother prepared dinner. Father said he liked our company—as long as we didn’t fight or meddle with his art supplies. Sometimes as a special treat, he let me change the water where he dipped his brushes. I’d walk down the hallway, carrying the little jar of water turnedto blackish brown soup from the combination of all the colors Father had used. I remember feeling as important as if I were carrying the Holy Grail. What Jewish girl thinks such a thing? Not a religious one, that’s for sure.
    Sometimes, when Father’s pen stopped making its scratching sounds and he laid his paint brushes aside, lining them up from shortest to tallest, Father would show us what he’d drawn that afternoon. Of course, it was really me he wanted to show his work to. Theo was too young to appreciate it.
    The memory of one drawing comes to me now: a drawing that changed our lives. In it, a scowling man with a dark mustache climbs a stepladder. He is holding a paintbrush, and there is a can of paint by his feet. Underneath, in Father’s tidy black script, are the words:
If only he’d stayed a housepainter
.
    â€œThe man’s mustache is funny,” Theo said when Father showed us the drawing.
    â€œWho is he?” I asked Father. Father’s drawings appeared from Monday through Friday on page three of the
Telegraaf
, the Amsterdam newspaper. His work was almost always funny, but this time, I didn’t see the joke.
    It was dusk, and a shadow crossed Father’s face. “It’s Adolf Hitler,” Father explained.
    â€œHitler?”
    â€œA madman who’s come to power in Germany,” was all Father said as he arranged his jars of paint in a neat row.
    In the end, our dikes did not keep us safe. In May of 1940, the Nazis, hungry to swallow up more of Europe, invaded Holland. The
moffen
—that’s what we called the Germans because of the furry muffs they wore to keep their hands warm in winter—came rolling in on their big gray tanks like a herd of angry elephants. I was almost too afraid to look. My knees shook when I heard the rumble of the tanks. How could this be happening in Holland? I’d studied wars in history class, but somehow, I never dreamt I’d see one up close. Five days later, Holland capitulated.
    That was when Sara disappeared. Packed up her little suitcase and left early one morning without even bothering to say good-bye. She knew better than any of us what the Nazis were capable of. Did she somehow manage to escape from Holland? We never received word from her, but I like to think she found a way out of the country. I imagined her in London. I’d been to Paris on holiday with my parents and Theo, but never to