Max feels guilt because he left his family..... he left his family to survive.
If only he’d turned for one last look at his family as he left the apartment. Perhaps then the guilt would not have been so heavy. No final goodbye.
For the next two years, he remained in hiding, in an empty storeroom. It was in a building where Walter had worked in previous years. There was very little food. There was plenty of suspicion. The remaining Jews with money in the neighborhood were emigrating. The Jews without money were also trying, but without much success. Max’s family fell into the latter category. Walter checked on them occasionally, as inconspicuously as he could. One afternoon, when he visited, someone else opened the door.
When Max heard the news, his body felt like it was being screwed up into a ball, like a page littered with mistakes. Like garbage.
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