Erika Dreifus

Gigi’s mom had once told him that when she was a little girl in the ghetto, a hunched old man named Max came up to her before one of the roundups, and said his whole family had already perished and he knew his time was up. He asked Gigi’s mother to look at him and remember all his features. Gigi’s mother scrutinized the old man, trying to memorize every single wrinkle on his face. Max was very grateful: “No matter whether you’re dead or alive,” he said, stroking her hair, “as long as someone remembers you, you exist.” The Nazis put Max on a train that same day, and for the rest of her life, Gigi’s mother thought about him every single day. She told Gigi that in her most difficult and frightening moments during the war, she knew she had to survive, because if she died, no one would be left to remember the hunched old man, and he would cease to exist.

Etgar Keret, “As Long as Someone Remembers You” (trans. Jessica Cohen)