THE NUMBER (Micro-stories)

FOREWORD

Memory, Fragility, and the Books That Stayed With Me

I didn’t start with The Diary of Anne Frank. My first introduction to the Holocaust came from a very old book I stumbled upon — one filled with black-and-white photographs of war-torn cities, prisoners in striped uniforms, hollow faces behind barbed wire. The images were stark and confronting. The book itself was falling apart, pages yellowed, the spine cracked. But something in it gripped me.

It stayed with me for years.

At the time, I didn’t fully understand what I was reading — not really. But the emotions it stirred, the heaviness it left, I carried that with me. There was a kind of pain for humanity, a sorrow that I couldn’t quite explain. And even at the risk of sounding overly sentimental, I won’t pretend I can fathom what those who lived through it felt. I can’t. None of us truly can. But it affected me. Deeply.

So much so, in fact, that the books were taken away. There was concern that I was getting too wrapped up in it all. And maybe I was. I read voraciously — whatever I could find, mostly from secondhand bookstores. Many of the covers were torn or missing, which made them more affordable but meant I often didn’t even know who the authors were. I just dove in.

It was only later that I came across The Diary of Anne Frank. I’d heard of it, of course, but it wasn’t something we studied in school here in Malaysia. When I finally found a copy, I read it slowly. I let it sit with me. Her voice was so young, yet so aware. So full of hope in the face of despair.

Another book which I just started, is Night by Elie Wiesel. I’ve not finished it yet — sometimes I need space between these kinds of books. They ask something of you. They linger.

Over the years, I’ve returned to this part of history more than once. Not just through books, but films, documentaries, survivor testimonies. It’s not something I talk about often. But it left a mark. A quiet one, deep beneath the surface.

We need to remember. Not to dwell in sorrow, but to carry the lessons forward. The atrocities committed during the Holocaust weren’t distant shadows — they were real. They happened to people with names, families, laughter, dreams.

Remembering is how we honour them. And how we make sure it never happens again.

THE NUMBER

They had long since painted over the walls. Scrubbed them clean, repurposed the buildings. Even the gates had lost their menace. To most, it was history — preserved, sanitized, remembered in plaques and faded black-and-white photos.

But in the quietest part of the morning, when the world still held its breath, she would wake and feel it — the number still etched into her skin.

Not the ink. That had faded, barely visible now, washed out by time and the sun. But the memory of it — the cold press of the metal stamp, the sting of its meaning, the moment her name was taken from her and replaced with a number — that never left.

Sometimes, when she closed her eyes, the scent returned to her — a terrible, suffocating blend of cold metal, damp straw, and something far worse. The smell of bodies pressed too close together in spaces never meant for life, the lingering tang of fear and loss woven into the air. It was a smell that no amount of scrubbing or repainting could erase.

She lived among books now. Rows and rows of them, stacked high in the quiet backroom of a small synagogue that rarely saw visitors. It was a kind of sanctuary. Her fingers traced spines the way others might run fingers over prayer beads — slowly, reverently, with quiet recognition.

Most of the books were secondhand, donated. Many were written in languages no longer spoken by the children who passed them by. Yiddish, Polish, German, Hungarian. She kept them all. Each one a voice. Each one a candle she lit and re-lit, so the darkness would never be complete.

Once a week, a boy would come in. He was curious, talkative, untouched by grief. He asked why she always wore long sleeves, even in the heat. She smiled softly and told him, “Some stories live on the skin.”

He didn’t understand, not yet. But she never tried to explain. That day would come on its own. And when it did — perhaps in a classroom, or in a museum, or holding a book that felt heavier than its pages — he would remember her. The quiet woman in the long sleeves who lit candles made of paper and ink.

And maybe, just maybe, he’d help keep the fire burning.

By Lyia Meta