A while I ago, I realised something. For many years, when I was a little girl and young teenager, I often felt self-conscious about being skinny and scared of becoming sick, and often asked my parents if I looked pale. When I came to think about it and about my grandmother Maria. I realised, that she was the one afraid of looking pale. That she, together with other women in the camps, used a little red fabric cloth to rub her cheeks with, to make sure she looked healthy and thus having the capacity to work. That means, not becoming sent to the gas chamber. What if, I picked this up, when I was a child, and inherited her fear? She passed away, when I was 7 years old, so I could never talk to her about the ordeal, but only hear about it from my mother.
Glad to not feel so pale anymore.