Shtetl Term Analysis

“Never mind, little Chaya, never mind,” Gitl said. “Shmuel and I—we are your family now.”

“But if there is no Old Rochelle, how can there be a New?” Shmuel mused out loud. “Perhaps there is a Rochelle all alone, though the child does not know it.”

Pretty girl, with faraway eyes,
Why do you look with such surprise?
How did you get to be so wise,
Old girl in young-girl disguise.

“The men down there,” she cried out desperately, “they’re not wedding guests. They’re Nazis. Nazis! Do you understand? They kill people. They killed—kill—will kill Jews. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Six million of them! I know. Don’t ask me how I know, I just do. We have to turn the wagons around. We have to run!”

Was knowing—or not knowing—more frightening? She couldn’t decide. A strange awful taste rose in her mouth, more bitter even than the Seder’s bitter herbs. And they were for remembering.

“Of course, Jew,” came the officer’s voice. “And then my men will move among you and take your papers and jewelry for safekeeping.”

The memories of Lublin and the shtetl and the camp itself suddenly seemed like the dreams. She lived, had lived, would live in the future—she, or someone with whom she shared memories. But Rivka had only now.

“In my village, in the camp . . . in the past,” Eva said, “I was called Rivka.”

Hannah nodded and took her aunt’s fingers from her lips. She said, in a voice much louder than she had intended, so loud that the entire table hushed at its sound, “I remember. Oh, I remember.”