It was 1938 in a small town at the eastern edge of Austria, under Nazi occupation. Our modest country store had been seized by the storm troopers. The Gestapo threatened us with deportation to a concentration camp unless we left the country within four days.
Hastily we sold our furniture and most other belongings to the next-door neighbors. On the day of our departure, we looked around one last time at the place where my sister, then 16, and I, 17, had spent a happy childhood. We never imagined that some day we would be declared members of an evil and inferior race.
My father, Simon Weber, was an honorable member of the community. For him, this latest catastrophe was a repetition of a nightmare he had experienced as a 23-year-old: At the start of World War I, he was captured on the Russian front and spent six horrid years in Siberia as a war prisoner.
The four of us gathered in our kitchen, ready to leave forever, when father turned abruptly around and thrust himself into a corner, with his back to us. His powerful shoulders were shaking and we heard him sob uncontrollably.
We stood by helplessly when Simon Weber suddenly turned around and staggered out of the kitchen and into the backyard. He bent down and scooped up a handful of earth, put it into a small cloth bag and hung it around his neck under his shirt.
We were now ready for our journey.