"Ima (mother)! I cannot leave you! Not here! You will surely die! Besides, I look German! I'll be safer here! You go to America, Ima!" The old withered woman chuckled bitterly.
"No Hannah, you are much too pretty to be safe here," she said hoarsely, stroking her daughter's rosy cheeks with a slender brittle finger that had once so lovingly stroked the keys of the grand piano in her zaidey's (grandfather) home.
"But Ima, if I have a chance at surviving don't you think I should stay? Shouldn't we both live?"
"I don't want you to get mixed up in things here. You're an ambitious girl, and I don't want you to get mixed up in things, nor do I want those Nazis laying a finger on you, do you hear? They will, if you stay. That is why you are going to your uncle in America."
"What about David, Ima? Have you forgotten him?" David was a young handsome talmid (student) with a baby face, twinkling brown eyes and unruly blond curls. He had proposed to Hannah last summer, but they both had no money for a wedding, or a rabbi to marry them. Hannah's father had died from illness less than a year ago. A ghetto was no place for the elderly. It was definitely no place to raise children.
"Yes. David will be heartbroken indeed. But we have talked, and he agrees that it would be safer if you were to go to America. He said he'd rather know you were safe, than to have you in danger here, where he can barely protect you." Hannah's sky blue eyes flooded over with tears. There was a soft rapping at the door before it squeaked open to reveal a lanky youth with disheveled blond curls, and sad brown eyes. They ran to meet each other, both teary eyed. Hannah threw her arms around his waist, sobbing into his chest. David gripped the back of her neck, holding her close to him, while his other hand stroked her back. He kissed the top of her blond head over and over as they cried together.
"I love you my precious, precious Hannah. Be safe." She cried then, harder than ever. She cried and cried. She cried herself to sleep right there in his arms. He lifted her up and carried her to her bedroom. He stretched her out on her bed, and leaned forward to kiss her forehead for the last time.