For the first time, I decided to break our most sacred rules, to let someone in on our secret. Perhaps I was too weak to bear one more blow alone. (p… - Ida Fink

Later she used to say: The place where everything almost ended. She meant the long, gray stone building on the circular plaza planted with trees. But why that place? After all, there were other places equally, if not more deserving of that description. And yet, thirty years later, it was that place she went to see, only that one place. (p226)

Father called us to his office, to the animated Mrs. Kasinska, who, once the price was agreed on, promised to make Kennkarten for us so we could be saved, so we would not be killed. ("The Garden that Floated Away")

the seemingly quiet days were in fact full of anxiety and insecurity. We were walking on shaky ground, mined with guesses and speculations. We dissected every fragment of every sentence, every look, every smile; we studied them, as if under a magnifying glass-and we waited. In those early days we felt a growing sense of siege. We wondered: What next? (p87)