Hitler Made Me a Jew by Nadia Gould Page A

leader. He has creative ideas. He knows how to get others to do what he wants.” Hearing this I decided perhaps he wouldn’t be so bad in our group and that by flattering him, I might make him my assistant.
    After a few days, we smelled a foul odor that we traced to his trunk. We opened the trunk and found that all his pants, neatly stacked, had shit stuck to them. Now I understood why they gave me the boy. I was furious. My colleague said it was not his fault and that he had told Dr. Patrick and his nurse about the problem. “So?” I demanded. “What am I supposed to do?” I just got a blank stare and a shrug as the answer.
    I gathered up the soiled, stinking pants and took them to the laundry room. The lady in charge said, “Sorry—you’re not bringing these in here!”
    Feeling persecuted, I made a hole in the ground and buried the pants. The way the lady in Philadelphia had buried her dishes to make them kosher. The fat boy had no more pants. The Dr. Patrick consulted again said, “O.K. we’ll call his folks, and we’ll send him home. I don’t know what else we can do.”
    All at once I felt sad. Now that the problem was so easily settled, I didn’t want to see the boy leave. In desperation, I told him, “You are going to be tied to me all day. The minute you have to go, you’ll go—I’ll be there and this way there’ll be no accident.”
    And that’s how we were, tied together, for an entire day. When I had to be freed I had someone hold him for me. All day long, I asked him, “Do you have to go?” When the evening came, he begged me to untie him. He promised he wouldn’t do it in his pants anymore, and he didn’t. It was a triumph. Later I learned that his parents, who were both doctors, had faced this problem before, but had not known what to do for him. They had not said anything because they were afraid their son wouldn’t be admitted to camp. They had hoped something would happen to change their son and it did. I thought it was a miracle.
    The countryside around Camp Willowemoc was beautiful with big old trees and clear cool streams, large enough for going swimming. We took walks and had picnics, and sometimes we went on overnight camping trips with bonfires and cookouts. The boys rolled in the grass and climbed trees, and we read stories in the shade.
    The kids thought I was funny because they told me that “fluck” meant rain. And I would say fluck if it rained, and they went crazy with delight. After I learned what the word meant to them, that it was close enough to a forbidden English word to sound shocking to them, I kept using fluck to help me get on their good side. They were a handful. In the evening I tucked them in and kissed them lightly on the cheek, but I remember taking pleasure in pinching their cheeks according to their behavior that day. Sometimes I felt I was ready to explode, but I had to be patient and tolerant with these little monsters. Still I was attached to them.
    We, the counselors, had our fun too. Del, who was one of the most sought-after guys in camp, flattered me with his attention. I thought he was the best-looking black counselor. He courted me openly but never made serious demands. He taught me how to dance the jitterbug. To my surprise I loved the dance. Before that I had thought ballroom dancing was frivolous and stupid. Why do people like dancing cheek to cheek, I wondered. Later I learned that Del had sex, in secret, with another girl. I didn’t care, I was seventeen and not ready for sex. We fondled a lot. It was called petting and it was what everybody was doing. Petting was not considered sex. Nothing was more sacred than one’s virginity and one’s reputation. Petting was like necking.
    My new friend that summer was Loretta, a music student at Music and Art High School. She was six months older than I, but I felt she was much older because she was so