He was caught somewhere between his mother’s last kiss and the first kiss he would give his child, between the war that was and would be. Jonathan Safran Foer During the Cold War, my mother would travel from Gdańsk, Poland, to East Berlin twice a year to shop for items that were unavailable back at home; school supplies, clothes, and…
Continue reading →History takes place in language before it manifests itself in events. In first grade, at seven years of age, I started catechism classes like everyone else in my school. A part of me was excited about it, and a part of me was scared. Today I know that the part of me that was scared was precisely responsible for my…
Continue reading →The first was red socks. I grew up in communist Poland, and I knew few people who didn’t dream of leaving. I was one of them, and I emigrated as soon as the ban on traveling to the West was lifted. The place we all wanted to live was the United States of America, the greatest country in the world….
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