I didn't want to be on the losing side. I was fed up with Jewish weakness, timidity and fear. I didn't want any more Jewish sentimentality and Jewish suffering. I was sickened by our sad songs.

I learnt pity, sympathy, and what it was like to be at the other end of the stick. Such lessons can't be learnt in lecture halls.

To change, to convert? Why bother?

When you do a good turn you feel rich, even if you are broke.

What would I have done if I'd been put to the test? Would I have risked my own life for people I hardly knew? Probably, I would have looked the other way at best or become another apologist for evil at worst.

Pious XII was too neutral to mention the gas chambers; decent people like my own family were turned into devils by crude Christianity.

For some years I deserted religion in favour of Marxism. The republic of goodness seemed more attainable than the Kingdom of God.