Some time ago we published The Key and The Tenth Man, two “holocaust” stories by Ida Fink. This is the title story of the book from which they came. A woman who had watched as men from her Polish village were rounded up and ostensibly taken away to labor camps reflects that, for those traumatized by war or disaster, time is not measured in months and years but by actions and events. Sadly, there are far too many people in the world today forced to measure time in this way. Themes include childhood innocence, fear, deception, self-delusion, atrocity.
