Free My Canary Yellow Star by Eva Wiseman

and pushed me down the steps of the streetcar. The old lady with the basket stumbled down close behind. Two more policemen were waiting for us on the sidewalk. As I stood, terrified, I could see and hear everything that was happening inside the streetcar.
    The younger policeman had approached the woman with the little boy in her lap. For a moment, the womansat frozen. Then she put her child down on the floor, pulled her identification papers from the pocket of her dress, and handed them over to the policeman only after he repeatedly shouted at her to do so. The child clung to his mother’s knees, looking in turn at her white face and the beefy policeman looming over her. The boy began to suck his thumb.
    The woman’s papers showed that she was from Gyor, a town two hours away by train. She did not have the documents necessary for living in Budapest. The woman apologized and told the policeman she would be applying for her Budapest papers immediately. She explained that she had arrived in the city only a few hours ago. But the policeman ordered the woman off the streetcar with her child. She must have realized that being caught without her documents meant deportation. She got down on her knees and begged him to let her and the child go.
    The policeman grabbed the woman’s arm and pushed her toward the steps. The child was still clinging to her skirt. The older officer, who had been guarding the exit, rushed up to the petrified little boy, tore him away from his mother, and carried him down to the street. The child began to wail. The mother, who had been kicking and clawing at the younger officer, gave up her fight and ran down the steps to reclaim her child. She grabbed the boy out of the policeman’s grasp and clasped him tightly to her chest, stopping right next to me.
    “Why you …!” the policeman thundered. He drew his gun out of his holster and aimed it at her head. The woman covered the child’s eyes with her hand. My own eyes were riveted on the policeman’s fingers, which were moving toward the trigger.
    “I’m sorry to interrupt, sir, but you forgot to check my papers.” A quiet, dignified voice broke the tense silence. The man with the briefcase was climbing down the street-car steps. “I am also a Jew.”
    The officer lowered his gun. “Halt, Jewish dog!” he cried. “Where is your yellow star?”
    “I am not required to wear one,” the man said. “My documents, sir.” He held out his papers to the policeman. Below the rim of his hat, his forehead was beaded with sweat.
    “God bless him,” the mother of the child whispered under her breath.
    “All right, Jew, let me see your papers,” the policeman growled, putting his gun back into its holster. His three colleagues exchanged relieved glances while he began to examine the man’s documents. “Is this a joke? What is this?” he asked. The other officers crowded around him, murmuring to each other.
    “Where did you get this?” another one of the policemen asked. All of the officers seemed very interested in the Jewish man’s documents.
    “I have a Schutz-Pass. A Swedish protective passport,” the man said in a calm voice. “It was given to me by Mr.Raoul Wallenberg, from the Swedish embassy. Hungarian authorities do not have jurisdiction over me any longer. I do not have to wear a yellow star. I am a Swedish subject, a Swedish citizen protected by Sweden. You must let me go.”
    “He is telling the truth,” said one of the policemen, his voice laced with amazement. “This Jew has some kind of Swedish passport. We have to let him go.”
    “Damn it, you’re right!” said one of his colleagues.
    None of the officers was looking in our direction. “Run!” I whispered to the people standing next to me. The woman with the basket dropped her load; the mother picked up her child. All three of us raced away. As we turned the corner, we scattered in different directions.
    I ran and ran. I ran until I had no breath left to run any more.