A Child Al Confino: The True Story of a Jewish Boy and His Mother in Mussolini's Italy Read Online Free PDF

pulled from his wallet a few Austrian Schilling. The porter, with a blocking motion of the hand and a smirk on his face, made it clear he wasn't at all interested in taking those bills. Papa had to find an exchange booth to bring the predicament to an end.
     

Poland — My Extended Family
     
    B oth my parents were born in Poland: my papa, Markus Lifschütz, in Krzywczyce on February 15, 1897, the oldest of three boys; my Mutti , Carlotte Szyfra Brandwein, in Nadworna on May 10, 1901, the youngest of four. When the 1914–18 war was nearing its end but before the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, my father and his two brothers moved to Vienna.
    Vienna was a cosmopolitan city, and the three young men looked for a better future than what would have been possible in rural Poland. Moreover, their uncles, Simon and Maximilian, had already settled in the Austrian capital and become successful property owners.
    I met both of my great-uncles, my grandfather's brothers. I visited Uncle Simon in his luxurious apartment with its thick Persian rugs, but Uncle Max, who was held in awe by the family, I only knew from a distance.
    In 1936, my parents took me to Lwow, Poland, where most of the Lifschütz family had settled after leaving their shtetl . We stayed with Papa's parents, and during that visit I spent much of my time meeting the more than sixty members of my father's large family. I couldn't believe I had so many cousins, aunts, and uncles. But of greater disbelief was the uncle who was younger than his own nephew.
    “How can Yankle be older than his Uncle Morris?” I asked.
    “Why do you always have a question?” She hesitated struggling to explain. “ Yankle was five when his grandmother died. Her husband married a much younger woman and their first child was Morris. When he was born, Yankle was already eight; that's why he is older than his Uncle Morris.”
    I was only six years old. How did Mother expect me to understand such a mishegas ?
    When not visiting relatives, I played on the street with the neighbors' children.
    One day a dirty, drunken, shabby, middle-aged man stood some distance from me. “You damn Jew,” he screamed, as he hurled a heavy brick my way.
    He may not have been too steady on his feet, but his aim was excellent. The missile sailed through the air. I saw it fly toward me and turned around just in time to save my face, exposing my back to absorb the full force of the impact. Crack! My thin shirt was little protection against that hard brick. In great pain and sobbing, I ran home to tell my grandfather, Opapa Moses. “ Opapa , I wasn't d-d-doing anything to him.”
    He held me tightly to his chest while his white beard stroked my face and my freely flowing tears wet his shirt. “Sha, sha, Kindele. Ikh veis. Got vert im shoin beshtrufen.” “Quiet, child. I know. God will punish him,” he said. When I asked what that meant, he told me it referred to the punishment that would befall the enemies of God's chosen people.
    The next day, to get me off the street, my parents took me for a long walk. We traversed a city park, then climbed up a hill. The gently inclined serpentine road circled several times until the last loop brought us to the peak from which we looked at the town below. I saw people, horses, carriages, and even trolley cars that seemed real but were so small to fit in the palm of my hand. I was baffled. How could that be?
    “Where do those small people live?” I asked.
    “Down in the city,” Papa replied. “It's called an optical illusion. You can only see them from here.”
    When we returned home, I was ready to explode. “ Opapa , you have never seen people so small,” I exclaimed. Then holding out the palm of my hand, I said, “I could carry them right here. Papa says nobody can get close to them. You can only see them from the mountain. Did you ever see them?”
    He shot a questioning look at my parents.
    “ Er redt auf di menschen man siht von oiben ,” Mutti