The Next Adventure: Being Old

Dear kind man

Who helped me when I was 11 years old and

not speaking a word, not a single word, to anybody

because it would have been a German word

and then they would kill me, said the boy from my orphanage

Who was bald

because they shaved his head in the concentration camp

for being Jewish.

Dear kind man

Who spoke on the telephone in German

and made me cry so hard I fell over

and he picked me up and put me on a bus

with two bars of chocolate for his family

so they would like me.

But the chocolate was stolen

so I never went to his family

because they would think I’m a thief.

And that’s what I wanted you to know,

dear kind Man:

I was never a thief

And when I wake up in the middle of the night,

these 70 years later,

burning with shame

I still wish I could tell you what really happened,

dear kind man,

but I never saw you again.

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