You take the job as a store clerk on Manhattan's Lower East Side and spend four years living and working among the Russian Jews who live in this area. At least these Jews understand your problems. After all, they and their parents had to flee tsarist pogroms and persecutions in Eastern Europe a generation earlier. When you talk about your anger, your fears for the safety of the family you have left behind, and your uncertainty in this new land, they understand.
Yet, the more you learn about what is happening in Europe as German armies sweep through the old Pale of Settlement, the more you conclude that this situation is different. No one has ever before tried to kill every Jew in the world. Something totally unique is happening, and only those who have experienced it personally can really understand. Finally, you feel you must be among refugees from the Nazis. You move to Washington Heights, a section along the Hudson River where many German-Jewish refugees have settled. On Shabba morning, you find the services, even the way the Hebrew is pronounced, very familiar. After the service you meet people who have had many of the same experiences as you. This is where you will spend the rest of your life. This is your new home.
END