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  For my father, Michael Moskowitz, and to all those who refuse to turn a blind eye to injustice.

  —GLORIA MOSKOWITZ-SWEET

  This book is dedicated to Michael (Moishe) Moskowitz. Thank you for trusting me with your story. It is powerful, painful, and beautiful.

  —HOPE ANITA SMITH

  For Bernie, who shared my journey through this important project with love and support.

  —LEA LYON

  I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides.

  —ELIE WIESEL

  It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.

  —AUDRE LORDE

  CHAPTER 1

  IT MATTERS

  1936

  IT MATTERS

  It matters

  which side of the street

  I walk on to get home.

  There is their side,

  and the safe side,

  the only side that gets me home

  the same way my mother sent me out.

  It matters

  that my eyes are watching,

  scanning the neighborhood for

  thirsty Polish boys,

  who drink Jews like water,

  wanting

  to pound me like schnitzel.

  It matters

  that I have learned the politics

  of life.

  Know enough to find two Goliaths

  to protect me.

  My contribution:

  homework assignments worthy of a good grade.

  My teacher gives us an exercise.

  “Write something that has meaning.

  Use your shovel.

  Dig deep.”

  I want to say something important.

  Something that will last.

  Something that says I was here.

  I write my name.

  Moishe Moskowitz.

  I matter.

  SMALL WORLD

  Our world is small.

  Our life is simple.

  We live in the house

  my father got as a wedding gift

  from my mother’s parents.

  There are two rooms

  and five of us.

  My brother and I sleep with our father

  and my sister shares a bed with our mother.

  I go to two schools,

  public school and Hebrew school.

  I walk one hour each way,

  my legs are able.

  I speak two languages,

  Polish and Yiddish.

  My mother stays home

  washing, cleaning, cooking.

  I bring in water

  and chop wood to heat our house.

  I am a good son.

  My sister, Bella,

  is like her name.

  She is beautiful.

  She has our mother’s face.

  My brother, Saul,

  is too old for games.

  He sits with the men

  rocking and chanting prayers.

  My father travels.

  He is gone most of the week.

  It takes many days to buy a cow.

  He makes sure to be home for the Sabbath.

  My mother and Bella light the candles.

  Together we say prayers,

  thanking the Master of the Universe

  for our small world

  and our simple life.

  NOT SO BAD

  We live in Poland,

  a country that has no use for us.

  A country that bullies its citizens,

  beats up on us because we are different.

  Living in Kielce, we are familiar

  with being unfamiliar.

  I had a hatred for Poles and all things Polish.

  They destroyed our property,

  burned our homes,

  and every Friday

  Catholic boys lie in wait to smear pork fat

  on our faces as we walk home to

  prepare for Shabbat.

  My father wipes my face and says,

  “It’s not the best thing, Moishe,

  but if this is the worst thing, it’s not so bad.”

  IN PREPARATION

  Mother scents the house

  with blueberry pierogi

  warm from the oven.

  The Sabbath is coming.

  We are in preparation.

  Outside, I chop wood for the stove.

  Bella helps in the kitchen,

  and Saul,

  too tired to remove the threads

  clinging to him from the tailor’s shop,

  is home just in time for dinner.

  We are all present and accounted for.

  A blessing.

  I see us wrapped in the glow of the Shabbos candles.

  We are light.

  My mother says the prayer.

  My sister mouths the words.

  She is in preparation, too.

  Later, we walk to temple

  and I am still warm

  from the meal my mother made,

  the words my father spoke,

  and the light from the candle’s flame.

  LESSONS LEARNED

  I study hard.

  I want to be

  an educated man,

  like my father.

  I’m a fast learner.

  I write out my lessons neatly

  and quickly,

  then tuck them in my schoolbag,

  excited to share what I’ve learned.

  But every day is the same.

  My teacher, Mr. Bienkowski,

  asks a question

  and my hand shoots up

  like a rocket,

  but Mr. Bienkowski can’t see me

  (even with his glasses on).

  He calls on someone else.

  Someone who doesn’t raise his hand.

  Someone who doesn’t know the answer.

  He has taught me that I am wasting my time,

  but I keep trying.

  I want Mr. Bienkowski to know

  I’m ready, whenever he decides to call on me.

  But he never does.

  Each time he passes over me

  it’s like an invisible punch in the stomach

  and it hurts more than anything

  the Polish boys could do to me.

  I’m sure he didn’t mean to,

  but Mr. Bienkowski has taught me something else:

  Bullies come in many shapes and sizes.

  A SWEET TREAT

  After school my mother makes me a

  sugar sandwich

  using bread that she and Bella have baked.

  My moth
er knows that I need something

  to curb the bitter taste of

  Polish boys in my class

  who hate

  not me

  but the thing that makes me different—

  I am a Jew.

  In Hebrew school I am taught

  that we are The Chosen People

  and I feel it.

  I am sandwiched between two Polish boys

  who keep me safe for a price.

  No boy has ever struck me.

  They hate me only with their eyes.

  It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

  My sandwich is toasted, warm,

  with just enough sugar to sweeten my day.

  IN THE MIDDLE

  In my family, I am in the middle.

  Stuck between two tall towers that are my

  younger sister and my older brother.

  My sister is still too young for chores and cooking.

  She is content to play and giggle with her friends.

  She is concerned with nothing.

  My brother’s forehead is creased with worry like our father’s.

  He has forgotten how to laugh.

  “You don’t know how to have fun anymore,” I tell him.

  “You are too busy trying to be a man.”

  “I am a man,” he replies, chest out.

  My father watches me.

  He knows.

  He knows that I know.

  Everything is changing.

  CHAPTER 2

  THEY’RE COMING

  1939

  THEY’RE COMING

  The color of the sky is changing.

  I lie awake at night

  listening to my parents’ voices.

  Their words tiptoe across the air.

  “They are coming,” my father whispers.

  My mother says to him,

  “You must go to America, like your brother.

  Then send for us.”

  Her words are urgent.

  They rush about.

  I feel a cool wind blow into the room.

  My father’s reply is a sharp axe.

  “I will not leave you,” he says.

  “I will not leave our children.

  The wolves are coming.”

  I pull the covers over my head.

  The Nazis are not here yet,

  but fear has already captured us.

  JANEK

  My father’s friend Janek

  has a farm.

  When I was younger,

  Father would take me with him to visit.

  While the men talked business over hot tea,

  I played with Janek’s dog.

  Today when he prepares to go to Janek’s house

  I am not invited to come along.

  I already know that this visit is

  between friends.

  My father stands in the dirt outside of our house.

  He looks as if he has brought his troubles to ask his wiser self

  what we should do.

  Mother comes out with a bag of food.

  It is filled with latkes for Janek.

  She places it in my father’s hands

  and their hands hold on to each other

  before Father pulls away and starts down the road.

  “What is the food for?” I ask my mother.

  “It is a thank-you,” she says.

  “Your father has a difficult favor to ask of Janek.”

  “What if…,” I ask,

  pausing to breathe in the last of the scent

  of my mother’s delicious treat,

  “What if he says no to the favor?

  Will Father bring the latkes back to us for dinner?”

  I am hopeful when I ask this.

  My mother turns to me, laboring to push her mouth

  up into a smile.

  “No, Moishe. The food is for Janek, whether he says yes or no.

  It is not a thank-you for the favor,

  it is a thank-you for his friendship.”

  LETTING GO

  My mother is nervous.

  She wrings her hands,

  wet towels that need to be dried.

  Her mouth is turned down at the corners

  as if it is too weary to raise itself up into a smile.

  Every day she packs away one of her favorite things.

  She tells Bella, Saul, and me that we must do the same.

  Bella doesn’t understand and hides her books and toys

  under the bed.

  My mother finds them and puts them in the box.

  Bella cries, but our mother is resolute.

  “Every day,” she says as she gently but firmly

  moves Bella out of her way,

  “we must stop loving something.

  If the worst should happen,

  we will need to hold on to what is most important:

  the love we have for each other.”

  HIDING

  Today we are all headed to

  Janek’s house.

  My father leading the way,

  Bella riding on Saul’s shoulders,

  and my mother and me behind them.

  We don’t talk,

  only force our mouths to become

  commas lying on their backs

  looking up at the sky

  to anyone we meet along the way.

  We hope our faces say,

  this is a day

  just like any other day.

  Janek comes out to meet us.

  My father jumps over the greeting and

  gets right to the point.

  “We must hide.”

  Janek nods.

  Herds us off behind his house

  to the barn.

  It is dark and the dust swarms

  like a hive of bees

  at even the slightest movement.

  The hay is a million needles

  pricking us at every opportunity.

  From our hiding place, I can hear

  Janek’s dog barking, calling me to play.

  I am feeling guilty.

  I wish I had been more friendly—

  Janek will keep our secret,

  but his dog has no such loyalty to us.

  The barn smells.

  “What did you think?” Saul asks.

  “It’s a barn,” Bella says,

  and buries her nose in our mother’s dress.

  “You’ll get used to it,” Father says.

  We settle in.

  No playing.

  No light at night.

  No conversations.

  I no longer go to school,

  and still,

  I have mastered a new subject.

  I have learned to be invisible.

  LESSONS LEARNED

  Two months hiding in a barn.

  Without speaking.

  And yet, we have learned sixty new words for fear.

  Monday—worry

  Tuesday—panic

  Wednesday—dread

  Sixty words for sixty days.

  After dark, we are bold.

  Leave fear in the barn,

  forget the worries of our lives.

  Go out into the night and

  dare to look the stars in the eye.

  Someone might see us.

  Someone might tell.

  Our eyes dart right and left.

  We see shadows moving all around us.

  Each time,

  we forget to breathe.

  We are so hungry for home

  we cannot think clearly.

  GOING TO THE MOVIES

  “A barn is not a home.”

  These are the words of my sister, Bella.

  The barn is dark, smells of cows,

  and the hay is itchy.

  Bella is miserable and too little

  to hide it.

  Her complaining stops only long enough

  for her to cry.

  When I see the tears in her eyes about to


  spill over,

  I grab her hand.

  “Shhh. Come with me, Bella.”

  I help her up the ladder to the loft

  and lay my coat down

  as a blanket over the hay.

  “What are we doing?” she whimpers.

  “I wanted to take you to the movies.

  Lie down.”

  I lie down beside her and search until

  I find what I’m looking for.

  “There,” I say, pointing up at a spider

  hard at work on a web.

  “What’s it called?” she asks as she

  leans her head against my shoulder.

  “This one,” I say, “is called

  The Adventure of the Web Weaver.”

  TOO SOON

  A visitor comes to see Janek.

  Another farmer.

  A friend.

  “I have news,” he says.

  I am listening to everything he says.

  He tells Janek and my father that

  the Nazis have come,

  but they aren’t bothering anyone.

  All is quiet on the outskirts of Kielce.

  My father blushes

  at his extreme measures.

  Two months hiding in a barn.

  My mother touches his arm.

  We say good-bye to Janek.

  Thank the barn occupants

  for sharing their home.

  They roll their eyes,

  chew clumps of hay.

  Good riddance, they say as they

  spread out into the space we’ve left behind.

  We are delirious.

  We are going home.

  We were not thinking clearly.

  We went home too soon.

  UNINVITED GUESTS

  Our uniformed visitors

  were like guests who didn’t know

  the party was over.

  They stayed.

  The city of Kielce housed the largest population

  of Jews in Poland.

  And yet, the wolves loomed large, overshadowed us.

  Not more,

  but mighty.

  There was something

  about them,

  something that said they weren’t visitors,

  something not quite human.

  Their eyes followed us,

  as if we were something good to eat.

  We forgot who we were.

  Skittered around like rabbits

  trying to make ourselves small.