ABSTRACT

I flipped over the slip of paper with the green markings, the one that named Jedwabne my father's hometown. The flip side read, “Manguito Prov. Matanzas” https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203798744/6599540b-358a-4a84-97c0-57b44e3046ae/content/page_v_3_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>.1 My father named the other place that had played a formative role in his life, and about which I had no first-hand knowledge. Manguito, so many thousands of miles from Jedwabne, one in the old world, so to speak, the other in the new world, so to speak. Yiddish and Polish in one place, the Spanish language in the other place. He was so young to have crossed the ocean by himself. I'd been thinking about my own children, could not imagine letting them go like that, letting them go alone, a teenager, in steerage, with little money, and no way to call me! https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203798744/6599540b-358a-4a84-97c0-57b44e3046ae/content/page_40_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>