A woman looks back on her family’s history as Holocaust refugees, and her family’s use of German at home:
“‘Fräulein Raeff,’ she turned to me. I stood up. ‘Can you give another example of a taboo?’ I suppose again that she was trying to go easy on me, but, because I was slightly annoyed that she didn’t think I could handle a more difficult question and because my response was accurate, I replied, ‘An example of a taboo in Austria would be talking about the Holocaust.’
“Hearing this answer, she did not smile and say, ‘Richtig.’ She did not write my name down in her book. She did not tell me that I needed to go back to my notes or to study harder. She simply sat down and was silent.”
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