The Sixth Echo: Holocaust Houdini
How one random afternoon my father chose not to disappear
My father knew how to disappear in plain sight
.
He was always there. Just not fully.
Even at his most present, there was distance—an arm held out, steady, practiced.
If you moved too fast toward him, he shut down.
There were moments of connection, but they were brief and unrepeatable. They didn’t lead anywhere. We didn’t build on them. The children were part of his life, but never its center.
He had learned early how to make himself smaller.
As a boy, he was separated from his father when the Germans entered Poland in 1939. His mother had already left years earlier, after her first child died. For most of the war, he lived under a name that wasn’t his, moving from place to place until it was safe to reunite.
He survived by not drawing attention.
That skill stayed with him.
As an adult, he could retreat into it instantly. Loud rooms. Too much energy. Emotion that asked for response. He would withdraw, quietly, without explanation.
I was the opposite.
Always outside. Always moving. Always wanting to do something.
My father never played with me. Not really.
Whenever things got too active, he disappeared—back into himself—as if noise alone could get you noticed.
There was one afternoon I still remember clearly.
He came to the basketball court with me.
Not because we played—though we did. Not because we spent time together—though we did that too. It was because something else shifted.
He asked questions.
Listened.
Talked about players I loved. Mentioned an obscure Spanish player he admired.
He stayed.
We shot around for a while. I can still hear his voice—quiet, careful. A voice trained young to stay low. A voice that never raised itself in public. A voice that learned early that attention carried risk.
That day, on the court, he didn’t disappear.
He stood in the open with me.