could change them. Back then, acceptance was greater.
The Port was like another country.
The fateful moment when Abraham and Ernesto’s sons came across me alone in the Port happened on the way to the hotel, along a parallel avenue to the one tourist use.
“Big faggot!” Abraham snapped. “Where do you think you’re going?”
That night in Puntarenas, a miracle occurred. The Puntarenas gang appeared out of nowhere and stood between me, trembling with shame, and the Jewish children. They asked Abraham, “What the hell is wrong with you?” The stubborn bully didn’t want to back down because his own pride was at stake. “This is none of your business,” he replied rudely, claiming the monopoly on punishing Jews, just like any member of the Judenrat (a Jewish group appointed by the Nazis to govern the ghettos).
He shouldn’t have done it! Before he could utter another sound, my friends were on top of him; they hit him like they probably never would have in his life. My friends from the Port kicked Ernesto’s sons in the ass, and the others fled; the war ended faster than a shooting star in the Pacific sky. I wanted to cry because in this pogrom in the Port, Christians saved a Jew from the hands of his persecutors, who were none other than members of his own people.