A Darling's Tooth

The body of a little red-haired girl, Grete Topel, who had been butchered by the Ghost, was tossed onto a 50-foot-high pile of dog carcasses that had been skinned for their fur that winter. Unable to contain my indignation, I went and retrieved her from the heap and dragged her into the shed where she could be with her friends whose bodies were marinating there. "There, Grete," I said to her. "Now you have some proper company." And as I spoke, the tiniest tooth tumbled out of her mouth and onto her belly. I picked it up, spit, and polished it, in awe at the innocence it represented, and determined then that I would keep it as a proof of the horrors of the Shoah. This tooth, of course, now resides in a place of honor in the Holocaust Museum in Houston, Texas, where it is used as an educational tool and presented to Mexican young ones who visit on school field trips. I received only $2,000 for it, but what is important is that it can now belong to the world.