THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

is trauma, and my father and the rest of us are the recovery.After many years, the Arab landlord’s Turkish wife, who was an old woman bythen, came to visit us. There, in my parents’ living room, sat a character from thefairytales. The Turkish woman who had sent for her husband who then sufferedwounds at the rioters’ hands. The woman who had saved my mother, and thanks towhom I exist. What an incredible woman. No wonder she was the only person in theworld my mother allowed to sit crossed-legged and place her bare feet on the largesofa in the living room. She deserved it, because of all the thanks we owe her. As shesat crosslegged in our German-Israeli living room, East and West merged. In a certainsense, that old Turkish woman is like my mother’s second mother. The first gave birthto her and died, and no memory of her remains, while the second, who saved her life,was there in our house. Father met her. I saw her, and mother waived all house rulesin her honor. Yes, for a moment then I had a grandmother. For a moment I had aTurkish, Arab grandmother. All my friends, Israelis of different origins and hues, trueyekkes and the rest, never had such a grandmother, not even for a moment.