Is Misha Jewish?
It doesn’t matter that much, but in my mind he’s probably a gypsy. I drop a few hints that he might be Roma. He has a vague memory of horses and flames. I don’t know for sure why I didn’t make him Jewish. It had something to do with making the point that the Holocaust was a human tragedy. In my notes I jotted down a line that became my motto while I was writing the book: “It was not just one Holocaust for six million, it was six million holocausts of one.” How did you manage to strike a tone that balanced the horror of the Holocaust with human optimism so that children and adults can love reading this book? A lot of that has to do with a kind of feel for things as you go along. It’s hard to explain—it’s similar to why you chose one shirt and put the other four back on the rack. Even more important is the point of view that I chose—a kid effectively without a past. From his point of view, he simply appeared at age three next to a crumbling wall and that was his birth. He has no prior kn
