The Power of Testimony

Chapter 1
Techirghiol, Romania
1961
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every
experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.
You are able to say to yourself, “I lived through this horror.
I can take the next thing that comes along.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt
On Good Friday, it was customary for children to ask their
parents for forgiveness and to kiss their parents’ hands—
a tradition that I always found awkward and strange. Then
we would go to the Romanian Orthodox Church so the
priest could offer us forgiveness. Sometimes I didn’t even
know what I was asking forgiveness for. But it was the rule.
And in Techirghiol, you followed the rules or there were
consequences.
That day, I walked to the church with four neighbor girls.
As we entered the building, two tall men dressed in black
and sporting dark glasses blocked the doorway. One of them
opened a notebook. “Names! Ages!” he barked.
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