By Marlene Samuels

High school in our new American community was, for me, a stress-filled experience that fueled my debilitating sense of dread every school-day morning. I was the proverbial “duck out of water”,  the girl who did not fit in—last one chosen for gym class teams, who sat alone during lunch-hall, to whom no one spoke—an outsider among the teenagers who’d known one another since nursery school and whose parents were long-time friends, many of whom had attended the same elite colleges.

My parents had moved our family to the affluent Chicago suburb from our poor Montreal neighborhood populated almost entirely by Holocaust survivors. They were people who’d been unable to secure U.S. immigration visas after being liberated from the camps. My parents were foreigners, but not because they were from Canada—the country on the pull-down school map most students and their parents regarded as the United States of America’s northern extension.

Mom and Dad were bona fide foreigners. They spoke seriously accented English and always attracted sideways glances at village restaurants when they lapsed into Yiddish conversation. They’d grown up in eastern Europe, but particularly difficult: they were Jewish immigrants in an elite Protestant community where the few Jews who did live there were highly assimilated and boasted American roots dating back to the early 1800s. Besides their religious identities and pronounced accents, my parents were Holocaust survivors as well. They’d each been in concentration camps.

Each weekday morning, I awoke sick to my stomach, apprehensive about the taunts and isolation the school day might bring. I refused to raise my hand in classes and cringed in terror that I might be called upon. I avoided interacting with any other student. Dad’s admonishments created a continuous loop in my head, lessons he’d taught me beginning in my earliest years.

“Always, you must be quiet in a group. Never you should talk in front of strangers, but if yes, then only to answer a question what they are asking you! Farshteyst mir (understand me)?” He repeated this one lesson almost daily.

“Sure I do, Dad, but what I don’t understand is why!” 

“Why?” He snapped, indignantly. “Why is because never you should call attention to yourself, never! Best it is to be something like the invisible person. This I know because if you’re not careful and god forbid, you become visible, they will notice you. They’ll look closely on you and then poof! Then just like that they can decide to finish mit you!”

By second semester of my senior year in high school, and because I’d completed every mandatory history class, I was permitted to select one from a group of electives. I chose to register for an unconventional one, Oriental History: Japan and Her People. Thus far, my high school performance had been deplorable so chance to study something unusual, excited me.

Two weeks into the semester, Mr. Gould, my history teacher, made his announcement:

“Each of you will select a topic from our readings for an in-depth review. Write one sentence stating your topic on a three-by-five card and submit it to me by the end of Friday’s class. I’m giving you one week to prepare, and you’ll present your report to the class. Make sure to practice your presentations and make certain they don’t exceed fifteen minutes. I’ll start calling you randomly on Monday!”

I was dumbstruck by my teacher’s announcement. Was it possible I’d have to present in front of the whole class, before the students who mocked me and to whom I’d never spoken? The week dragged on. Each day, my dread increased exponentially. By Saturday evening, although I’d completed my report days earlier, I was so overwhelmed with dread, I was awake all night. By Sunday, my stomach was in knots, and by dinner-time, my appetite was obliterated.

I’d always been a healthy eater with a hearty appetite fueled by Mom’s gourmet cooking skills. But at dinner that evening, I stared, unblinking, at the plate before me. Several fork-pokes later, and still I’d not eaten one bite. I was plagued by thoughts about what the coming week might hold for me.  I fought nausea.

My mother was impressively observant, a woman who noticed every change and detail from the seemingly most insignificant to the largest, in people and in her surroundings. Everything registered in her brain, an aptitude I’d always suspected was one that had proven  invaluable to her surviving Dachau.

“What’s the matter with you tonight? Are you sick?” She asked, staring at my face and  the untouched food on my plate.

“I’m not sick, but my stomach is a mess.”

“Could you be overly hungry?” She suggested. “If you eat something, you might feel better.”

“Mom, I’m sure I’ll throw up if I eat!”

“So what’s this business tonight with you? Are you going to tell me?”

With that, I began to sob uncontrollably, blurting out the source of my indescribable distress. “Mr. Gould, my history teacher, said he’ll start calling on us tomorrow to present our reports in front of class.”

“And so for you, it’s a problem? You told me you finished the assignment already, yes?”

“I did finish. And yeah, it’s a huge problem! Mom, I can’t talk in front of the whole class—in front of those kids who make fun of me and are mean to me all the time—because I’ll throw up for sure. If Mr. Gould calls on me to present tomorrow, I’m going to die!”

My mother stared at me long and hard, expressionless. She shook her head back and forth. Then, in her soft voice, barely above a whisper, she said, “Trust me, Marlene, you definitely are not going to die. One thing I know for sure, it’s not so easy to die!”

© 2025 Marlene Samuels

Marlene holds a Ph.D., from University of Chicago. A research sociologist by training, she writes creative non-fiction by preference. Currently, she is completing her book entitled, Ask Mr. Hitler: A Memoir Told In Short Story.  She is coauthor of The Seamstress: A Memoir of Survival, and author of When Digital Isn’t Real: Fact-Finding Off-Line for Serious Writers. Her essays and stories have been published widely in anthologies, journals, and online.  (www.marlenesamuels.com)