My dad would say, “Salt is poison,
You can’t have salt in this house.”
That’s what I remember.
When I was 18, my dad got me the job.
We all had to do work important for the war.
I had to push little carts in a big factory.
There was a constant fear.
I had a Jewish grandfather
So I was supposed to wear a yellow star.
But dad said, “Hide it, don’t do it.”
For about two or three months
We wore the thing, but hid it.
And, of course, that was illegal.
And that was scary.
Once at supper, Dad said,
“You know where we were today?
Up at the Gestapo.
They were interested in what we knew
About the Major who lived in our building,
The Major who knew the nobility who
Tried to assassinate Hitler.”
Then there was the real bad time
When the Nazis took over,
That was real bad, the fall of ’44.
Dad got us some false papers
That showed we came from an area
Occupied by the Russians,
Pretty hard for the Nazis to trace.
I think Dad knew he had a bad kidney;
He must have been fighting it.
I say, “You get through a lot.
See, for me, it’s gone on about
14, 15 years, so you’re not
Feeling you are condemned.
The most important thing to me is
What is inherited.
Kidneys – it’s just one thing of your life.”