This book is based on another book—not a library book, or a bookstore book, or even a typed manuscript. It was a book written by hand and owned by my mother when she lived in Germany as a girl. The year was 1938. In her own language, German, the book was known as a poesiealbum (po-eh-ZEE ALbum). In English, you could call it a poetry album.

Poesiealbums were blank books in which young people—mostly girls—collected poems, drawings, and expressions of good wishes from friends and family. The books were popular in Germany in the 1930s, and had been fashionable since the 1800s. The closest American traditions were autograph books and school yearbooks—but poesiealbums were much more serious enterprises. You didn’t just dash off a little ditty while leaning against a locker in the school hallway. Usually you took your friend’s poesiealbum home overnight and used your best handwriting, and maybe also colored pencils, to create a lasting impression. Your illustrations were likely to include symbols of good luck, such as ladybugs, piles of coins, horseshoes, fly mushrooms, four-leaf clovers, hearts, and chimney sweeps and their tools. You might further decorate your page with oblaten (o-BLAH-ten), stickers that girls collected and traded.

In 1938, World War II had not yet begun, but Germany, under its leader Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, had certainly begun its policies of discrimination and exclusion toward the nation’s Jews. My mother, her family, and most of her friends were Jewish. The entries in my mother’s poesiealbum, written from January to November of 1938, were made during a period of rapidly increasing danger for Jews in Germany.

This book—the book you have in your hands—tells the story of what happened to my mother and her family in 1938. The actual poesiealbum entries by my mother’s friends and family (translated here into English) serve as stepping stones through the months of this crucial year. They introduce chapters, written in verse form, that describe my mother’s experiences and emotions and report some of the history of the era. I have written these verses in consultation with my mother to reflect her voice, feelings, and thoughts as she was living through this memorable year. Finally, the book also includes excerpts from my mother’s diary, which she began in the fall of 1938. Together the poesie writings, verses, and diary entries reflect a year of change and chance, confusion and cruelty. Perhaps most of all, they describe a year of goodbyes.