Pastel Orphans

As long as there is a sun and a moon, there is another day to love and fight.

Because they are ignorant and their parents are ignorant. Because they don’t know any better.” Pastel Orphans

After what we have seen, we can never again be who we were.

She is human like the rest of us. She believes in fairness. What is happening to them is not fair.

Late afternoon, a package arrives addressed to me. Inside is a picture book and the title is Hansel and Gretel. It is the most beautiful book. It has a golden spine and the pictures are shining with color. I read the whole book over and over again and then I read it to Greta, who clings to me afterwards. “It is all right,” I say to her. “It is just a story. Things like that don’t really happen.

They can’t get away with this for much longer. Social injustice is not acceptable in the Western world.

I thought there was no point in going back. Perhaps it was the trauma of being in the camps, perhaps I was scared of what I would find. Some memories are too painful to relive. Berlin was a place I had decided I would never see again. But then never is perhaps too long, isn't it, dear little Gretel?

I wish that the world were not like this. I wish for you to know a fair world .. . to have a childhood without worry, without hunger.

She spoke softly and gently, like our ears needed respect, and she carried the worries of the world on her shoulders so that we did not have to. She never once complained.

You will always get your moments, but you have to measure them carefully.” I

I know from living with women that while they say much, they will only reveal the things they want to, that they carry many secrets. The

...I feel pity that she will never fully understand what it is to be loved and forgiven, then loved even more.” Pastel Orphans

Poor little lambs,’ says one, eyeing us constantly, as if there is something wrong with us; as if we have a condition that can’t be named.” Pastel Orphans

for Greta when she wakes.