Only f***lies were allowed to board the train. Just before departure, a woman traveling alone approached us. “I’ll take care of him,” she told Elyte, and pulled me onto the train as it left the station. The entire trip I cried for my Motina, my mother.
We arrived in Hamburg. Corpses littered the bombed-out streets. Now that the woman had escaped Taurage she had no more use for me. I lived on the streets, like thousands of other children in that war-torn city. I survived by stealing food. Still, there was never enough. I was skin and bones, close to starving.
Then the American occupation troops arrived. They looked so big and healthy. Filching food from them was a cinch2. I’d slip into the mess hall, hide under a table and make off with loaves of fresh bread.
One afternoon as I lurked around a mess tent in search of food, a huge hand lifted me up by the collar. An American soldier. “Got ya！” He shouted.
I was scared, and I could see it upset him. “It’s okay, kid,” he said. He reached into his fatigue jacket and handed me a chocolate bar. “Here, have some of this.” I unwrapped it and took a small bite. I thought I’d gone to heaven.