Hitler Made Me a Jew by Nadia Gould

didn’t please me as much as it did my mother. I was continually carping, always irritable. We were alone in the dormitory, but we were joined in the dining hall by Bowery bums. If they were presentable and sober, they would be allowed in for meals. Their cheerful presence didn’t help me feel better about my situation. I was humiliated to have to sit next to these smelly men.
    These derelicts were happy to eat whatever was served to them, even the herring with sour cream and boiled potatoes, which at the time seemed to me a strange combination that I had never seen served in France. The sight of it made me feel sick. I knew I should be more appreciative, but I couldn’t help myself. My low status was unbearable. I dreamed of being rich. My mother, worried that I didn’t eat enough, took me once in a while to one of the fancy cafeterias on Fourteenth Street.
    The cafeterias may have been standard and plain for most Americans, but to me they were the height of lavishness. You went through a turnstile and automatically received a ticket, for which you had to pay a penalty if you didn’t present it on the way out, so you kept the ticket with great care whether or not you used it. Once inside, you chose anything you wanted. The possibilities were mind-boggling. But I found that the food didn’t taste as good as it looked. Most of the time it was flavorless. My favorite treat was plain toast. To me, toast was the most delicious of all American foods. I had never seen a toaster or white sliced bread in France.
    We also used to go to the Automat, the closest thing to a French cafe because one could stay hours undisturbed with friends, and no one expected you to buy more than a cup of coffee.
    In the same neighborhood, was the famous Luchow Restaurant, which attracted many celebrities. Our favorite pastime was going to the movie house on Irving Place where we saw French or Russian movies. They played two films at each show, and there was a new offering every day. These movies made us feel less homesick while we were waiting to know what our future would be once the war would be over and we would be reunited with my father.
    On Fourteenth Street, we accidentally met our prison friends from Spain and Portugal, Annette and her family. Her parents had started a small manufacturing business making leather belts. She was going to Washington Irving High School, and she suggested I go there, too.
    My mother found a job wrapping vitamin chocolate bars for soldiers. It was piecework again, and she was anxious to be as fast as she could be to make the most money. She had to be careful not to get involved in her co-workers’ gossip lest she lose time. An acquaintance on the job found us a cheap apartment, which was unheard of in those wartime days.
    It was on Fifty-fifth Street between First and Second Avenue, on the top floor of a walk-up building. The halls were dark, and the stairs were hard to climb, but we had a tub with a metal cover in the kitchen and the toilet was inside the flat. The people on the other floors had to share a fire escape that we could use as a balcony. I was satisfied at last and I didn’t regret leaving the Hias.
    We put down new linoleum on all the floors, and my mother took the furniture that people gave us. The generosity of our new acquaintances surprised us. It was part of the feelings of abundance and space we had felt in the United States.
    House cleaning became my chosen responsibility. The shine on the floor and the smell of wax after buffing gave me great pleasure. I couldn’t tolerate anyone walking on my perfect floors, and I was endlessly dusting. I did the housework listening to soap operas on the radio, most of which I didn’t understand. One show was about a famous actor and his wife, another about a family in which a girl got pregnant out of wedlock. I also loved cowboy songs. Some stations played them all day long, and I tried learning the words: “I’ve