赫爾曼與羅瑪·羅森布拉特/Herman and Roma Rosenblat
It is cold,so bitter cold on this dark winter day in 1942.But it is no different from any other day in this Nazi concentration camp.I am almost dead,surviving from day to day,from hour to hour,ever since I was taken from my home and brought here with tens of thousands of other Jews.Will I still be alive tomorrow?Will I be taken to the gas chamber tonight?
Back and forth next to the barbed wire fence trying to keep my emaciated body warm.I am hungry,I have been hungry for long.Each day,as more of us disappear,the happy past seems like a mere dream,and I sink deeper and deeper into despair.
Suddenly,I notice a young girl walking past on the other side of the barbed wire.She stops and looks at me with sad eyes that seem to say that she understands,that she too cannot fathoms why I am here.I want to look away,oddly ashamed for this stranger to see me like this,but I cannot tear my eyes from hers.Then she reaches into her pocket,and pulls out a red apple.Oh,how long has it been since I have seen one!She looks cautiously to the left and to the right and then with smile of triumph quickly throws the apple over the fence.I run to pick it up,holding it in my trembling frozen fingers.In my world of death this apple is an expression of life,of love.I glance up in time to see the girl disappearing into the distance.
The next day I cannot help myself-I am drawn at the same time to that spot near the fence.And again she comes.And again she brings me an apple flinging it over the fence with that same sweet smile.This time I catch it and hold it up for her to see.Her eyes twinkle.For seven months we meet like this.One day I hear frightening news:were being shipped to another camp.
The next day when I greet her my heart is breaking and I can barely speak as I say what must be said:“Dont bring me an apple tomorrow.”I tell her,“I am being sent to another camp.”Turning before I lose all my control I run away from the Fence.I cannot bear to look back.