By Liam Stack, The New York Times, April 1, 2021
A year spent hiding at home from the coronavirus has given Anne Bertolino, 96, a lot of time to dwell on the past: the anti-Semitic abuse she suffered on the streets of Hamburg as a child; the grandparents who pushed for her and her sister to leave the country for their own safety; and her mother, a widow who was killed in Auschwitz.
She has ached to return to a more normal life, when she socialized at a senior center instead of sitting in her apartment in Queens and watching old episodes of The Jack Benny Program and home makeover shows whose names she never learned.
“I am alone all the time so I have been thinking about the past a lot,” she said. “Unfortunately, I can’t forget anything. It drives me crazy.”
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