What World is Left Read Free Page B

London. Perhaps Sara had found work there as a housemaid, or fallen in love with a handsome widower who spoke with a British accent. She loved his children as if they were her own, and they called her Mama, nearly forgetting their own mother who’d perished from some terrible disease. Consumption, yes, it was consumption. Such a tragedy.
    There I went...inventing stories again.
    Once the Nazis took power, life in Holland got worse and worse for us Jews. We were forbidden to enter public parks or visit Christian homes. I’ll never forget the night we were turned away when we went for dinner to the Port van Cleef in Amsterdam.
    â€œI’m so sorry, Meneer Van Raalte,” Jan, the head waiter, told us, pointing to a sheet of paper tacked onto the restaurant’s wooden door. A lump formed in my throat when I read the words on the sheet:
No Jews allowed
.
    Jan refused to meet Father’s eye. “Rules are rules,” Jan said softly.
    Mother turned her back and began marching down the street toward Central Station. “I’d prefer to eat beef steak at home anyhow,” she called out.
    â€œYes!” I raised my voice so Jan would hear me. “And Mother’s won’t be dry like the ones you serve at the Port van Cleef.”
    Later, we would not be able to ride cars or trams, or even swim in the canal behind our house. Not being allowed to swim felt even more unfair than being turned away from the Port van Cleef. On hot summer afternoons, Theo and I listened from behind the curtains as the neighbor children splashed in the canal outside.
    Then, of course, there was the yellow star with the word
Jood
—Dutch for Jew—inscribed on it in fierce black letters. Mother had to sew them on all our clothes, and we had to wear the star wherever we went. It had to be worn on the left side, where our hearts were.
    I remember how hard my heart had beat the first time I wore one. Mother sewed it on my favorite blue sweater, the one from Opa’s clothing shop in Zutphen. My eyes filled with tears. Not just because I had to walk around Broek with this humiliating mark, but because of how ugly it made my sweater look. The harsh yellow, a fiery angry shade, clashed with the beautiful blue.
    None of us wanted to venture from the house wearing the star. Not even Father. It was Mother who was bravest. “I’m not going to stay cooped up inside all day,” she announced, holding her head high. “I’m going for a walk.”
    We were waiting by the front door when she came back a half hour later. She gave us a bright smile. “That wasn’t so bad,” was all she said.
    We got used to the yellow star. And though we were devastated at first, we also got used to it when the Nazis sent Father to a Dutch prison.
    It turned out the Nazis didn’t think much of the drawing Father had made of Hitler.
    Of course I missed Father. I was his favorite. And who would rub his forehead now when he got one of his migraines? Mother traveled once a week to the prison. When she got home, her face looked more tired than I’d ever seen it. “Father is fine,” she assured us. “He’ll be home soon.” But it was almost a yearbefore Father was released. In the meantime, I had to change schools. As a Jew, I was no longer allowed inside the Amsterdam Lyceum, the school I loved so much and where I did so well. Instead I was sent to the Joodse Lyceum—the Jewish High School—along with every other Jewish child my age who lived in the Amsterdam area.
    The Joodse Lyceum was a plain, brown brick building in an inelegant part of town. How I longed for my old school!
    I stopped trying to do my best. I left my homework undone in my satchel, and I whispered with the other students during class. “Anneke, if I have to tell you one more time to stop, I’ll...,” Meneer Cohen, who taught us Latin, warned.
    I looked him in the eye. Everything about Meneer Cohen bothered