You ask who I am? Do you not know who and what I am? And they all noticed me instantly. Everyone, the hunters on the paths, pursuers on the roads, the guards on the borders. They all knew me. Both in the summer and the winter, in rain and snow and in the black of the night.

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They all sensed me from afar, they smelled my scent... and you still ask how? Yes! I am a Jewish child, who mocks all hunters. A Jewish child who knows no fear.

Where did I come from? Have you also come to interrogate me? Well, I'll tell you the secret: I come from the pit of the dead. From an open grave have I emerged! There I was reborn. Whatever happened before that, I shall not recall nor tell. I will not tell about my little sister and my two older brothers and the baby Uri and about the mother who was taken with all of the children except for me.

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In the pit I was born, I lay in the pit with all the Jews, with all the children and I shouted "Shema Israel" and my father said to me: "Get out, my child, out of the pit. My own blood is flowing out and is exhausting me And you are living and wish to live. Know that from a pit of death you arise to life and your name shall be from now on: Haim, run away, Haim, my son and you shall surely live! "

 

I fled from the open grave to the nearby forest. And I whispered my secret to all the forest plants. But the hunters lurked, swirled in the forest, and I almost fell into the trap they spread at my feet until I left the forest.

 

The pursuers followed me, they were camps, camps and I was alone and they all chased me in order to seize me. And then I realized that I was carrying a treasure that was most precious to them, and all the work and all the trouble they took to obtain it was worthwhile for them. More than once did I despair of this type of living. I often thought of my mother and father who remained in the pit and thought that it was not proper for me to leave them, because I am a single Jewish child, and for what reason should a Jewish child like me live among so many hunters?

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But every time I saw that they were looking for another Jew and another Jew, I understood that a Jewish child was a great treasure and I swore to preserve this treasure no matter what!