All were hurrying home. If they made it safely, they would close their doors behind them, hoping to keep out the night and the Nazis. The Jewish District’s curfew was descending on buyers and sellers; thieves and beggars; whores and their pimps; the religious and those who cursed God. All equally, except for the Jewish Police, whose purpose was to enforce the curfew on the rest. Another hungry day was passing into oblivion. Some people had been able to find warmth and food while the sun was up. Some had been able to bathe, though nearly all in cold water. Some had found loved ones that they had believed lost forever. Others, that day, had lost loved ones to disease, hunger or overwork. Many of the new ghosts had marched off for the “shops” — small factories set up by German businessmen to help supply the war effort — at first light, but dusk brought them no closer to home. Families and friends would keep watch behind shut doors that the fallen would never pass through again. Bureaucracy or fate — those who lived in the ghetto learned that there was no difference.
