It was now nearing the end of the second week of November 1939. Altogether eleven weeks had elapsed since the night I had been handed the red slip of paper that had served as my passport to war. It was only a little more than two months since I had been awakened by the terrifying crash of the German bombs falling on Oswiecim. Those weeks, I realized, had been largely spent in meeting shock after shock, bracing myself for each successive one. The world I lived in was falling apart around me. [...] There was no longer a Poland.