After a fifty-five years gap, I finally met again the best and dearest literature professor from my senior high days.
Age 89 but his wits are as fresh as ever. By request of his daughter, he finally accepted to lay down and publish his boyhood memories - his father was arrested at home, in presence of his mother and himself, then a five-years old boy. There is little drama in boyhood memories, lacking full understanding of the circumstances, although many events may appear chilling in retrospect. His father came back. The final chapter however is the dry list of very close relatives who did not - name, arrest date, deportation date, train number, and then - a black hole in most cases (more than ten).
In the seventies, when we met, I could not even imagine what he had to endure (not to mention poverty). He was, and still is, committed to humanism and universalism, never alluded to anything, never.
We spent an hour chatting and sharing views and memories, also with his daughter (a literature professor too) and granddaughter (a Shoah historian).
Zf, 40/2.
