Thursday is mostly normal.  I suppose I’m still feeling euphoric about the election.  Thursdays are longer days for me, so I’m tired coming home.  As I pass the apartment building next to ours I notice a small change; there are two candles – the sort that Catholics light in their churches: Fat white candles in red plastic cups with gold colored tops – sitting on the stone shelf that borders their yard.  It is under a stone sign that is marble mounted on a brushed metal stand of some sort.  It contrasts the shelf, which is simple concrete, and the tall green hedge. 

The sign has always been there, German words chiseled on it.  I don’t know what they say.  I’ve never had time to try deciphering it.  Today is no exception.  I want to get home.  I’m starving.

Later in the evening, Eva comes home with the kids from one of the multiple music classes she’s got them involved in.  We stand together in the kitchen as the kids ask to watch a video on the computer (“No, you two are already too jumpy from the music class.  Go ahead and look at some of your books,”) and then go unwind in their room.

“Did you see the candles?”  Eva asks with a big smile.

“What candles?”

“The candles in front of the building next to ours.”  She is positively glowing.  I love seeing her like this.

“Oh, yeah.  I saw them.  Why are they there?”

“I’m not sure, but I think it’s because of Kristallnacht.”

“What do a bunch of unlit candles have to do with Kristallnacht?”

“They’re lit!  They are burning under the sign.”  She smiles while inhaling, and I just watch her.  “Someone or some people must remember.”

“Okay.  But why at the building next door?  Why under that sign?”

“That house,” Austrians use the word Haus to indicate nearly any sort of building, “is where there used to be a synagogue; one that was destroyed in Kristallnacht.”