The Man Next Door – A Memoir

 

 

August 18, 1971

Pardon my handwriting.  It’s pretty bad. A Nazi dislocated my hand and he really dislocated it.

 

My wife and I were in the same concentration camp, Auschwitz 3 or Monowitz. We both survived.  I was living alone when they found me. I was carried away from my life and my cat Betsey. Me and Laura are different. Laura’s a Gypsie and I am a Jew. My friend John was a Jew and he was killed in a gas chamber.  Me and Laura are both 50 and we have kids ages 15, 16, 20 and 21.  I always wonder about our 16 year olds Allisa and Caitlin. They are twins and despise each other so we had to have our 20 and 21 year olds Joey and Sal share a room.  The boys are moving out in about…oh, soon enough.

 

August 19, 1971

My 15 year old Rebecka is not happy with her mother. But anyway, here is the story of my life.

 

I was born on November 17, 1921. My childhood was boring. The biggest event was

taking a train to Germany and back. When I was 20 I was taken away from my life in my tiny house in Holland.  I met my Laura in Auschwitz. When we left I proposed and she married me on October 6, 1945.  We have five kids, Rebecka, Ayllisa, Caitlian, Joey and Sal.  Those kids are all very smart but I think Rebecka gets bored with all her friends back in Czechoslovakia, where we used to live. I have never left Europe and I wanted to go to America but all my children were sticking to Europe.  I speak Dutch, German, Czech, English and Spanish.

 

Right now I’m waiting to meet my fate.

 

August 20, 1971

I have been thinking and that biography is bad. The Nazis were bad people as was Adolph Hitler. In fact I event wrote a poem about him.

            I hate Jews

            I took over Germany and eventually Europe

            I am Adolf Hitler

It’s pretty bad huh?

Now. My worst experience was seeing my mother being pushed into the gas chambers. One night I went to take a peek at my mom and a Nazi caught me and that was when he dislocated my hand.

 

There’s this guy next door and he seems oddly familiar and I think he feels the same way about be. My tattoo I got from the Holocaust is still here on my right arm and it says

 

674800

 

Have I even mentioned my name? I am Shep Grendfeld.

 

August 21, 1971

Apparently that guy next door is a former Nazi. He’s the one who gassed 647801, who was my mother.  I called the cops and apparently they are hanging him so its, um…kinda a good thing.  Maybe. I don’t know.