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This is not my story. This is the story of Chava Eban, the principal of the Hebrew School I attended while growing up. She gave it to us, the hyperactive, yarmulke scorning, reform formative yids of Temple B'rith Kodesh in Rochester, NY. It has become my story, too.

She was a strict woman, and the intensity of her magnified eyes through her oversized rectangular glasses terrified us more than the numbers on her arm. She didn't worry what we spoiled suburbanite semi-goyische thought of her. We never thought of her as a her, or as a person, except during the telling of her story.

One day the dreadful Shiran sisters, who taught our two classfuls and routinely conversed in impenetrable Hebrew (which I do not know to this day; I would comment in the midst of their exchanges, "But shouldn't you season the bread first?" earning myself a gorgonic glower), combined the classes and deprived us of sugar long enough to keep us (relatively) still. After the last Noah, Seth, David, Rachel, Leah and Sarah choked down his or her granola snack, washing it down with water for once instead of Capri Sun, we solemnly (and somewhat comatosely) sang "Hatikva" to our shiny paper laminated Israeli flag. We sensed someone standing outside our door listening to our countertenors wrap awkwardly around the song's beautiful minor chords, swelling to nearly shatter glass as we attacked the high notes, "ohd-LOH AV-DAH TEEK-VAH-TAY(ay)-NU! ha-AH-TEEK-VAH SCHNODT-AHL-PAH(ay)-YEEN"; and repeating its final vow, "lee-yot am chof-shee bay(ay)-air-etz-ay(ay)-nu, beh-air-etz zee-yon yer-oo-shah-lah(ay)-eem." "Zee-yon" was "Zion" and "yer-oo-shah-lah(ay)-eem" was "Jerusalem." Then we sat in silence as the echoes of our sharp and flat voices died away. The words mean this: "As long as deep in the heart, the soul of a Jew yearns and looks forward to the East to Zion, our hope will not be lost, the hope of two thousand years, to be a free nation in our land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem."

The door opened and Mrs. Eban entered purposefully but slowly. Her every step told any troublemakers just how serious any offense at that time would be and for once no one, not even clever little smart-ass me, took the challenge. There was something else about the way she walked to the front of the class and took a seat before us in front of the green blackboard with a map of Israel and Gaza, the West Bank and the Sinai Peninsula on it. Another sign had anthropomorphized letter of the Hebrew alphabet upon it, the "yood" had just enough room for a smile and a wink, and the "gimel" outstretched a foot. On the wall with our cubby-holes there was another laminated paper poster, it had a picture of a line of cartoon people in worn but flowing robes making their way across a vast bright yellow desert under a merciless orange sun. The men were dark-bearded, except for their leader whose beard looked to be three feet long and silver-gray. The women covered their heads. They all wore sandals. In the extreme distance were tiny pointy mountains colored brownish-gray; one silver-gray peak, matching their leader's beard, stood above the rest. Above the peak was written, "Dayeinu: It would have been enough." She stood before us, a survivor carved out of the stones of the Negev desert in the Holy Land, absently scratching at the numbers on her arm. We were temporarily awed out of snivelling about the Disney Afternoon Lineup and glycemic overload we were being deprived of.

Mrs. Eban cleared her throat. We waited. She cleared her throat again. Her owl eyes did not seem focused outward; she touched her glasses. The Shiran gorgons shared a glance (in Hebrew).

"Yaakov, get Mrs. Eban a glass of water," said Golde (or Rivka, who could tell?).

I was Yaakov. We were each called by our Hebrew names while in class, but as there is no Hebrew word for "Russell" I was called by the Hebrew name for "Jacob." I was named for my Great-Uncle Jack Russell, as it is the custom to name children after those that have recently passed (not living, or death might make a mistake). I asked my mother why, if his name was Jack Russell, was my name not Jack? She said, "Because a Jack Russell is a terrier." I said, "But my name wouldn't have been Jack Russell, it would have been Jack Heller!" She paused, and said, "Oh." So I was Yaakov.

I drew her a Styrofoam cupful from the Tupperware pitcher on the Shiran desk. Her eyes focused on me as I handed it to her, "to-dah" she said, "thank you." She drank it down and I filled another and returned to my seat. As soon as I settled she began.

I don't remember where she started. I don't remember how she told her story. I don't know if she told us about how she was captured or if she ever ran, if they lived in a ghetto, if they were originally from Poland; the story of the train ride in the windowless, bathroomless boxcar crowded with hundreds of other souls from many places, speaking many different tongues. I have heard the stories of the boxcars from so many different sources I cannot distinguish anymore. For me the story begins with the word: Auschwitz. Yes, there was Treblinka, the work camp, and Bergen-Belsen and Birkenau and Dachau for scholars, but for children there was Auschwitz, the death camp. Little Christian children feared Hell, Satan, devils, the boogeyman, maybe ghosts, we feared that word. Auschwitz. "I was in Auschwitz," Mrs. Eban said, and we petrified; we turned into stone or salt.

What I remember next is what I saw in my mind. The door of the boxcar opened and it was night at Auschwitz. Rust colored light on barbed wire and guard towers. The arriving multitude choked the entranceway and her family, I think her father, mother and elder sister, linked arms to avoid being separated. She was a child, wire-haired and bespectacled. The sea of faces funneled into a double line: men and women. Her father joined the men's line. She never saw him again. Her line led to an inspection table beyond which I imagined it dividing again into two lines, one leading to a holding area then barracks, the other descending by a staircase into the Earth. The line inched forward and she hugged her arms around her mother's waist, shielding her eyes with her mother's shawl. They were approaching the inspection table.

Ten feet before the inspection table was a guard that looked like any other guard. He sat on a stool with his gun resting at his heel, watching disinterestedly as another boxcar was opened up. She moved the shawl aside and watched him; he must have seen the movement, because the next second he was off his stool. He threw her mother to the ground, tearing away the shawl; in one quick moment he struck Chana across her face. Her glasses splintered and cut her temple, then fell to the ground where the guard shattered them with his boot. He leaned closer to her and winked. The inspectors looked up from the table without concern.

"She looked at me," the guard grumbled at them and returned to his stool.

Her mother gathered her up and led her to the table. One by one the three of them were sent to the barracks. Behind them another girl, her glasses still on, was directed down the steps into the Earth.

Her story finished, she rose and left. Before the door closed she asked us a question but did not wait to hear an answer.

"Why did he do that?"