This compelling memoir takes readers through the eyes of a child surviving World War II in Nazi-occupied Poland. As a nine-year-old, the author witnessed his father being herded into a truck―never to be seen again. He, his mother, and sister fled to Warsaw to live in disguise as Catholics under the noses of the Nazi SS, constantly fearful of discovery and persecution. A sobering reminder of the personal toll of the Holocaust on Jews during World War II, this book is a harrowing portrait of one child's loss of innocence. This edition contains previously unpublished content from the original text. "For readers who have gone stale on the Holocaust, Nir's record of a child pursued will reawaken fresh awareness, shock, understanding, and conscience." CYNTHIA OZICK National Book Award finalist "An extraordinary memoir." ALFRED KAZIN New York Observer "Puts one in mind of great understated writers like Hemingway and I.B. Singer." JERUSALEM POST "Marvelous tells the story so matter of factly. Its very lack of hype makes it so frightening and compelling." HAL PRINCE Tony Award-winning producer "An engaging fast-paced Holocaust memoir." KIRKUS REVIEWS "An unforgettable memoir of a resilient family" BOOKLIST Yehuda Nir was an associate professor of psychiatry at Cornell University Medical Center. In addition to THE LOST CHILDHOOD, he is co-author with his wife Dr. Bonnie Maslin of PATTERNS OF HEARTBREAK: How to Stop Finding Mr. Wrong. Nir is the father of three sons and a daughter and lives in New York City. The Lost Childhood A Memoir By Yehuda Nir Schaffner Press Copyright © 2006 Yehuda Nir All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-9710598-6-3 CHAPTER 1 The Romantic Period It all happened very fast, although not unexpectedly. The war had started only a week before, and now I was on a straw-filled cart pulled by two tired horses, a Polish peasant at the reins, running away from the Germans southeast toward Romania. Since my ninth birthday, in March 1939, I had seen my father listening tensely to the news on the radio. We had just bought the radio, our first, a beautiful German Telefunken; but instead of listening to tangos (which until then we could hear only on our Victrola), we had to watch my father nervously turning the dial in search of news from abroad in any language. He knew German as well as Polish, and claimed to understand English. During World War I he had received a degree in business from the Handelsakademie in Vienna, where English was required as preparation for commercial contacts with then-powerful Great Britain. But although my father did well as a businessman, his affairs had not required contact with England; so the fact that he knew English came as a surprise to me. Until that time I hadn't been sure of the nature of my father's business. I sensed that we were better off than many of my parents' relatives, who would admire our beautiful apartment, grand piano, and Meissen china on their rare visits to Lwów from the small towns in eastern Poland where they lived. My mother's life-style enhanced that image of affluence. She would spend the morning with friends in the elegant Cafe Roma, leaving me and my sister Lala in the care of our Kinderfräulein, Rosa. My mother's involvement with household affairs was limited to picking the menu for dinner and purchasing kosher meat at our local butcher. Frieda, our German maid, was in charge of the household and cooking, although Mother was an expert cook. I remember Father being criticized by my uncle Arthur for employing an ethnic German. "I love it," Father would answer. "Don't forget, they're working for me!" In the summer of 1939 I began to scrutinize my father, trying to find out how strong he was, how capable of protecting us in those difficult times. I listened carefully to my parents' conversation, which was often in German so that Lala and I would not understand. I'd never revealed to them that I understood German, having been taught the language by Frieda and before that by her sister Adela, who had also worked for us. I gathered that my father's business was better than ever: he was a major manufacturer of kilims, the most popular type of carpets in Poland during those days. He maintained a network of artisans to hand-weave the rugs, and an army of salesmen to sell them, often door-to-door, all over Poland. I began to understand how we could afford our elegant life-style, my mother's endless visits to the local couturiers, the car with the chauffeur we had had the summer before, my father's fur-lined cashmere winter coat with a beaver collar, his many trips abroad. I felt very safe. That summer everyone was talking politics, but it was beyond me to comprehend the nature of the news. The names of our own Polish leaders were somewhat familiar: the chief of the armed forces, Marshal Rydz-Smigly; the president, Moscicki; and the foreign minister, Beck. I had also seen the streets full of patriotic slogans. One of them, "Strong, United,