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Show in my father's house/ 94 her face to mine. She glanced at Grandmother and grimaced. "The Jews. During the war." "Jews?" "Yes. They're God's Chosen. Remember, in the Bible -- about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob? The Nazis killed them like so many ants...men and women and even little children." "God's Chosen? I thought we were." "Well, yes, we are...." "Then will they put us in ovens, too?" My mother cleared her throat nervously. "No. Oh, no. Darling, this happened long before you were born, in Europe, across the ocean. You don't need to worry about it happening here. Besides, the Nazis put other people in the ovens too... not just Jews. People were arrested right and left." Arrested. The word wailed like a siren in my head. My father and the mothers had been arrested. I stared at Grandmother's oven beneath her coal stove. "Did they put them in ovens like this?" "Urn...no, they were bigger." "Like the oven that nurse put you in while Aunt Helga was born?" My mother squirmed. "It wasn't the same. She put me in the oven to warm me up. But there wasn't a fire under it...it was just warm." |