Manfred Pollak. Born in Germany, 1929

 Manfred Pollak. Born in Germany, 1929. Which date? Nobody knows. By the time he is nine, he's in an orphanage in Munich. Jewish school. No parents to be seen. Nobody explains why and perhaps nobody is curious enough to enquire.

It's Nazi Germany. He's a Jewish kid. That means that he is required to wear a big yellow Star of David; obtrusive and meant to signify that he is not like everyone else, that he is different, an animal. Everywhere he goes, it's there. On his chest a bull's-eye. He becomes friends with a kid, Hugo Holzmann. They're just kids who want to be normal but history is indifferent. Hugo lives. Years after, he's the one with the pictures that prove Manfred existed.

March 1943. Manfred is fourteen. The knock is sounded or perhaps boots on the stairs or perhaps just a shout yelled in the chill. No matter. He is yanked out of the orphanage, pushed into a cattle car with seventy others. No seats. No air. Only bodies and terror and the smell of what is to come.

Auschwitz. The name alone is sufficient. He doesn't survive an hour. Off the train into the gas. He was fourteen. That is all.

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