My Mameleh: A Memoir

 It was late, dark and cold. The little band of travelers were huddled together on the bench of an old train hoping to escape the tightening Nazi noose. Suddenly, they heard the conductor's loud voice, "Vos papiers, s'il vous plaît!" (Papers, please!). My mother's identity card had been stamped not once, but twice with the word, "Juif." She knew that her life and that of her friends now rested in the palms of a stranger, a government official whose job it was t