(2/2) “My mother died on July 6th, 2005. One day toward the end of her life, we were in the subway together, carrying heavy packages, and I could see she was exhausted. She turned to me and said: ‘A ganzeh leben is a schlep.’ Which means: ‘All of life is a schlep.’ And for a moment I felt her pain. I realized I could still love her. She couldn’t love me, but I could love her. Despite all the abuse she’d given me, I could feel her pain. I resurrected this old photo after her death. She’s with her first husband. It was weeks before he was taken away. She’s only twenty years old in this picture. That gorgeous face. That youth. How could I possibly hate her the same way? It’s unfathomable. Not that she was right to be cruel, but it’s unfathomable what she went through. I once helped her type a memoir to get reparations from the Germans. At the end of her story, she wrote: ‘It was a life of horror. Having lost everything and everyone, I’d given up my struggle to live. And at that time, it would have been easier if they had killed me. But they didn’t. So on I went, living in hell.‘”
