The grown-ups can’t stop talking

about the news.

Four days ago,

the day we boarded

our midnight train,

a Polish Jewish boy

here in Paris,

Herschel Grynszpan,1

shot and killed

a German government official

who worked at the German embassy in Paris.

Herschel was upset because his parents,

Polish Jews living in Germany,

just like us,

were grabbed from their home

by the Nazis—

this was back in October,

when I heard the click-clack

of the Nazis’ boots every day—

and were shipped to the border

between Germany and Poland,

with thousands of other Ostjuden.

They are sitting there still.

In the cold.

Not welcomed by Poland,

thrown away by Germany.

After Herschel killed the German official,

mobs of Germans back in Germany

attacked Jewish homes, businesses, synagogues—

and, of course, Jewish people.

The attacks started

just when we arrived in Paris.

They’ve continued up to this very moment.

There are fires and broken windows.

Our big synagogue,

where we used to go to services

(but not very often),

has been burned.

Jews are being arrested.

Jews are being killed.

If we had gone to the synagogue more,

if we had prayed more,

if all the Jews had prayed more,

would all of this not be happening?

How lucky we are,

the grown-ups keep saying,

that we left Hamburg

Monday night.

How lucky because of the angry mobs,

but also because Tuesday morning,

before dawn,

at six o’clock,

Nazi police came to our apartment

for us.

We know this because

Father telephoned Frau Krug,

and she told him.

We escaped the Nazis

by six hours.

We are safe.

But my sweet bird, Lilly,

is not safe.

She is dead,

killed by the Nazis,

who were angry that they did not find us at home,

angry that they could not arrest my father

for the crime of being a Jew from Poland,

angry that they could not send us

to the border with Poland

to sit in the cold

with Herschel Grynszpan’s parents.

We are like the bird

in Guy’s poem—

a bird who has fled a place

of green plains—

our beautiful Hamburg—

and a place

of pains and despair—

ugly Hamburg.

Will we be content one day?

Good question.