It is cold,so bitter cold on this dark winter day in 1942.But it is no different from any other day in this Nazi concentration camp.I am almost dead,surviving from day to day,from hour to hour,ever since I was taken from my home and brought here with tens of thousands of other Jews.Will I still be alive tomorrow?Will I be taken to the gas chamber tonight?Back and forth next to the barbed wire fence trying to keep my emaciated body warm.I am hungry,I have been hungry for long.Each day,as more of us disappear,the happy past seems like a mere dream,and I sink deeper and deeper into despair.Suddenly,I notice a young girl walking past on the other side of the barbed wire.She stops and looks at me with sad eyes that seem to say that she understands,that she too cannot fathoms why I am here.I want to look away,oddly ashamed for this stranger to see me like this,but I cannot tear my eyes from hers.Then she reaches into her pocket,and pulls out a red apple.Oh,how long has it been since I have seen one!She looks cautiously to the left and to the right and then with smile of triumph quickly throws the apple over the fence.I run to pick it up,holding it in my trembling frozen fingers.In my world of death this apple is an expression of life,of love.I glance up in time to see the girl disappearing into the distance.The next day I cannot help myself—I am drawn at the same time to that spot near the fence.And again she comes.And again she brings me an apple flinging it over the fence with that same sweet smile.This time I catch it and hold it up for her to see.Her eyes twinkle.For seven months we meet like this.One day I hear frightening news:we’re being shipped to another camp.
The next day when I greet her my heart is breaking and I can barely speak as I say what must be said:“Don’t bring me an apple tomorrow.”I tell her:“I am being sent to another camp.”Turning before I lose all my control I run away from the Fence.I cannot bear to look back.Months pass and the nightmare continues.But the memory of this girl sustains me through the terror,the pain,the hopelessness.And then one day the nightmare is over.The war has ended.Those of us who are still alive are freed.I have lost everything that was precious to me including my family.But I still have the memory of this girl,a memory I carry in my heart and gives me the will to go on as I move to America to start a new life.Years pass.It is1957.I am living in New York City.A friend convinces me to go on a blind date with a lady of his.Reluctantly,I agree.But she is nice,this woman named Roma,and like me she is an immigrant so we have at least that in common.“Where were you during the war?”Roma asks me gently in that delicate way immigrants ask one another questions about those years.“I was in a concentration camp in Germany.”I reply.Roma gets a faraway look in her eyes,as if she is remembering something painful yet sweet.“What is it?”I ask.“I am just thinking about something from my past,Herman,”Roma explains in a voice suddenly very soft,“You see,when I was a young girl I lived near a concentration camp.Where was a boy there,a prisoner and for a long while I used to visit him every day.
I remember I used to bring him apples.I would throw the apple over the fence and he would be so happy.”Roma sighs heavily and continues,“It is hard to describe how we felt about each other—after all we were young and we only exchanged a few words when we could—but I can tell you there was much love there.I assume he was killed like so many others.But I cannot bear to think that,and so I try to remember him as he was for those months we were given together.”With my heart pounding so loudly,I look directly at Roma and ask,“And did that boy say to you one day‘Do not bring me an apple tomorrow.I am being sent to another camp’?”“Why,yes.”Roma responds,her voice trembling.“But Herman,how on earth could you possibly know that?”I take her hands in mine and answer,“Because I was that young boy,Roma.”For many moments,there is only silence.We cannot take our eyes from each other,and as the veils of time lift,we recognize the soul behind the eyes,the dear friend we once loved so much,whom we have never stopped loving,whom we have never stopped remembering.Finally,I speak,“Look,Roma,I was separated from you once,and I don’t ever want to be separated from you again.Now I am free,and I want to be together with you forever.Dear,will you marry me?”I see the same twinkle in her eyes that I used to see as Roma says,“Yes,I will marry you.”
Almost forty years have passed since that day when I found Roma again.Destiny brought us together the first time during the war to show me a promise of hope,and now it had reunited us to fulfill that promise.Valentine’s Day,1996.I bring Roma to the Oprah Winfrey Show to honor her on national television.I want to tell her in front of the millions of the people what I feel in my heart every day:“Darling,you fed me in the concentration camp when I was hungry.And I am still hungry,for something I will never get enough of:I am only hungry for your love.”
