I grew up in a nonbelieving Jewish family. I came back from the camps with some painful questions about where I belonged.
Left to myself, without support and without reference points, who could I identify with? Who could I ask what a Jew was?
Isolated and lost, it was then that I felt the shame of being a Jew without a face, and the sadness of feeling ashamed.
It was hard to bear this emptiness in who I was. Tossed around, lost, I searched desperately for somewhere or something to hold me up, warily trusting those who I thought were free. They knew how to live, while I had everything to learn. But learn how? From whom?
Unexpected meetings showed me the way and helped me tend passionately to my roots. That was the only place from which I could be born again.