Next Train. Probably

Once there was a man, a good man, a good family man.

He struggled on those days to keep his family together and safe from human insanity and assuring them basic living although nothing was allowed to him: not to work, not to buy, not to sell, not to have dignity; not even a name for his name could be his death sentence.

And then they came to pick him up one day: “we have orders, you are to be on that train” and dragged him away.

His lovely wife run to the fascist bureaucrat responsible for this train and tried to convince him it was a mistake.

But he had no doubt and even said: “If you don’t run to the station now you will miss to say him goodbye”.

But she insisted.

He replied: “I have my orders: All Jews families have to go on that train”

“But it’s not the case!” she replied, “Look at our wedding certificate, I’m Christian, he abjured, we are a mix marriage”

So the Fascist started thinking “ach, I might do a mistake here, I don’t want to be responsible of it. He’s probably due on one of the next trains” and let the man go.

There was no next train that time.

That is how bureaucratic respect of rules saved my Gran-Pa allowing me to meet him decades later…

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Note: an Italian version of my story was published on Corriere della Sera

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