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preparing our backpacks, on baking breads and cakes, we no longer thought about anything. The verdict had been delivered.
    That evening, our mother made us go to bed early. To con- serve our strength, she said.
    It was to be the last night spent in our house.
    I was up at dawn. I wanted to have time to pray before leaving.
    My father had risen before all of us, to seek information in town. He returned around eight o'clock. Good news: we were not leaving town today; we were only moving to the small ghetto. That is where we were to wait for the last transport. We would be the last to leave.
    At nine o'clock, the previous Sunday's scenes were repeated. Policemen wielding clubs were shouting:
    “All Jews outside!”
    We were ready. I went out first. I did not want to look at my parents' faces. I did not want to break into tears. We remained sit- ting in the middle of the street, like the others two days earlier. The same hellish sun. The same thirst. Only there was no one left to bring us water.
    I looked at my house in which I had spent years seeking my God, fasting to hasten the coming of the Messiah, imagining what my life would be like later. Yet I felt little sadness. My mind was empty.
    “Get up! Roll call!”
    We stood. We were counted. We sat down. We got up again. Over and over. We waited impatiently to be taken away. What were they waiting for? Finally, the order came:
    “Forward! March!”
    My father was crying. It was the first time I saw him cry. I had never thought it possible. As for my mother, she was walking, her face a mask, without a word, deep in thought. I looked at my lit- tle sister, Tzipora, her blond hair neatly combed, her red coat over her arm: a little girl of seven. On her back a bag too heavy for her. She was clenching her teeth; she already knew it was useless to complain. Here and there, the police were lashing out with their clubs: “Faster!” I had no strength left. The journey had just be- gun and I already felt so weak…
    “Faster! Faster! Move, you lazy good-for-nothings!” the Hungarian police were screaming.
    That was when I began to hate them, and my hatred remains our only link today. They were our first oppressors. They were the first faces of hell and death.
    They ordered us to run. We began to run. Who would have thought that we were so strong? From behind their windows, from behind their shutters, our fellow citizens watched as we passed.
    We finally arrived at our destination. Throwing down our bun- dles, we dropped to the ground:
    “Oh God, Master of the Universe, in your infinite compassion, have mercy on us…
     
     
    ” THE SMALL GHETTO. Only three days ago, people were living here. People who owned the things we were using now. They had been expelled. And we had already forgotten all about them.
    The chaos was even greater here than in the large ghetto. Its inhabitants evidently had been caught by surprise. I visited the rooms that had been occupied by my Uncle Mendel's family. On the table, a half-finished bowl of soup. A platter of dough waiting to be baked. Everywhere on the floor there were books. Had my uncle meant to take them along?
    We settled in. (What a word!) I went looking for wood, my sisters lit a fire. Despite her fatigue, my mother began to prepare a meal.
    We cannot give up, we cannot give up, she kept repeating.
    People's morale was not so bad: we were beginning to get used to the situation. There were those who even voiced optimism. The Germans were running out of time to expel us, they argued… Tragically for those who had already been deported, it would be too late. As for us, chances were that we would be allowed to go on with our miserable little lives until the end of the war.
    The ghetto was not guarded. One could enter and leave as one pleased. Maria, our former maid, came to see us. Sobbing, she begged us to come with her to her village where she had prepared a safe shelter.
    My father wouldn't hear of it. He told me and my big sisters, "If