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Zöe Beck
was
transferred
to
another school. They said
he was now somewhere
close to Hanover, but
nobody wanted to say
exactly where. The border
opened that fall, and
people poured through
our city. We had always
thought they had to be
as different from us as
Martians, and that the
only place we’d ever see
them was in some future
museum
exhibit.
We
gradually forgot about
Silvana and her mother
and Herr Schneider. And
after a few years, Silvana’s
mother was nothing more
than an anecdote, just like
the ones our grandparents
told us about how after
the war everyone had
thrown their copies of
Mein Kampf into the
Judenteich. Or about
how the Judenteich had
gotten its name from the
fact that Jewish women
had washed their clothes
there many years ago.
Nothing remained except
the memories we didn’t
wish to have.