The Boy on the Wooden Box by Leon Leyson

remember going to the emptylot where there was one such screen and watching an endless parade of tanks and jubilant German soldiers as they rolled through the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France in May and June of 1940.
    As 1940 came to an end, new rumors circulated. A ghetto would be built in a southern section of Kraków known as Podgórze. The area would be enclosed with high walls; the few gates would be guarded at all times by German soldiers. All the Jews remaining in the city would be forced to live in the ghetto and would not be able to leave unless given permission by the Germans. We knew that in Warsaw the Jews had already been forcibly relocated into a small area of the city, where they now lived in desperately overcrowded conditions. I tried to wrap my mind around this new possibility. How could this ever happen? It seemed impossible. All too soon the rumors became reality. I watched as twelve-foot-high walls went up, encircling an area of residential buildings not far from our apartment. The Nazis then ordered 5,000 non-Jews living within the area to move out so that 15,000 Jews—everyJew still in Kraków—could be crammed into these new quarters.
    My father, ever ingenious, found a way to trade our apartment for one a gentile friend had inside the ghetto, hoping the swap might provide better accommodations than any the Nazis would arrange. In early March 1941, we piled our belongings onto a wagon we’d scrounged for the move and said good-bye to our apartment, the last tie to our once promising life in the big city.
    Unlike our first trip through Kraków over two and a half years ago, when we had ridden through the streets on the horse-drawn cart with a sense of excitement and anticipation, this time we felt only dread. As we approached the gates of the ghetto, I was seized by panic. I looked up at the high walls and saw that, with their flair for the sadistic, the Nazis, in the last few days, had topped the walls with rounded stones that resembled headstones on graves. Their implicit message was that we were moving into what would become our own cemetery. I could scarcely tear my eyes from the symbols of death that “welcomed” us.I stole a glance at Tsalig for reassurance, but he kept his gaze directed downward and wouldn’t meet my eyes as we passed by the guards and through the gate.
    Once inside the ghetto, we made our way to our new home, a building at Lwowska 18. We carried our few belongings up the stairs to the one-room apartment awaiting us. When we arrived, a couple, Mr. and Mrs. Luftig, met us at the door. They were two of the Jews who had been expelled from Germany and had somehow made their way to Kraków. The ghetto authorities, unaware of the exchange my father had made on the side, had assigned them to this apartment. Although my parents were unhappy about the arrangement, they didn’t dare question it for fear of retaliation by those in charge. Instead, we coped, as all Jews in the ghetto tried to do. My father hung a blanket in the middle of the room, separating the six in our family from the Luftigs. While my mother and sister unpacked the few items we were able to bring with us, my brothers and I left the crowded room to familiarize ourselves with our new neighborhood and seewhat we could learn. We were determined to make the best of the situation. What else could we do?
    A few days after we moved to the ghetto, the Nazis sealed the gates, locking us inside. Still, we thought, If this is the worst that happens . . . If only.

“SOMEDAY I WILL TAKE YOU to America, where my son lives,” Mr. Luftig promised me as we sat together cleaning his pipes on his side of the blanket dividing the apartment. In my first year in the ghetto, I often sat down beside Mr. Luftig. A patient and generous man in his mid-fifties, Mr. Luftig loved to tell me stories about his son’s life in New York City, a fantasyland of endless opportunities, an abundance of food, and few restrictions against