Finally she says, "What I remember best is the silence. But you can't talk about silence. Silence is the opposite of talk," she explains. - Ida Fink

The moment when the silhouette of an SS-man appeared in the pointed arch of the pigsty and his hand carelessly brushed the apple tree, dried by the summer heat-that moment gave us a taste of suspension in that limbo between life and death. ("A Dog")

I recall one image from those days of difficult waiting: the train in the meadow. It was on a day when a thunderstorm was brewing. Under the black, rain-swollen clouds we were raking hay in the fields. A long, serpentine train slithered through the meadow. Watching it disappear from sight, I felt—very clearly, very palpably--the proximity of danger and the futility of my desperate scrambling, my frantic efforts to break out of this closed circle. It was as if a metal band was suddenly squeezing my ribs. The world went quiet and dark. A thick, heavy silence fell. I dropped my rake on the ground, loosened my blouse. I was gasping for breath. (p185)

She went for so long without talking that silence became a habit.