The Last

Rosa looked at herself in the mirror and didn’t recognize the woman she saw staring back at her. When had she last gotten so farpitzed? She felt the collar of her dress choking her, and the rest of the garment wasn’t much more comfortable: a tight-fitting black satin number made of layered black triangles trimmed in yellow plastic caution tape, designed by Simon Aagst, that season’s winner of Project Runway. Instead of the word “Caution,” Aagst had the words “Never Forget” printed on the tape, “because fashion is political,” he had said to Rosa at her fitting.

When Daniel at the Foundation for Holocaust Remembrance first told her she would need to wear something nice, Rosa imagined herself wearing her simple flowered blouse with the embroidered daisies on the cuffs from Kohl’s—a steal bought on clearance for $18.99—a pair of tan slacks, and her favorite light blue cardigan, despite its having a small hole in one of the armpits that she told herself she would get around to sewing one day. All that was quickly vetoed by Rich, the event’s costume coordinator, who paid Rosa a visit just a few weeks earlier to see what she had chosen. “Oh, no! No, no, no!” he had exclaimed in horror as he took in Rosa’s “ensemble.” Shoah chic. That was the mandate that Helen, the Foundation’s head honcho, had charged everyone with, and Rosa’s thrown together dowdy outfit definitely was not it.

“The theme of the evening isn’t sad old homeless lady. You’re not homeless, are you?” Rich asked. Rosa shook her head. Rich began rummaging through the rack of dresses he had brought with him, all from the latest designers. A pink satin dress with a large bow at the hip (“Too prom girl!”). A gown of chartreuse organza that overpowered Rosa’s tiny frame (“Too Academy Awards!”). Finally, they landed on the Aagst number. “Ooh, I like this. It’s very now. Very trendy. Very Fuck You Nazis,” Rich gushed as he pulled the complicated dress with multiple zippers and asymmetrical angles onto Rosa’s body, and then stood back and beamed with delight like a proud parent.

Now Rosa waited, worried she might smudge her eyeliner that Cammie, the makeup artist, had applied earlier that day at her apartment, or wrinkle the gown if she sat the wrong way. The car would be there any minute to whisk her to Madison Square Garden far from her comfortable cocoon of afghans, Wheel of Fortune, and her beloved processed soup which would land every night with its reliable plop into a saucepan before she added water and stirred. The thought of going outside worried Rosa; the late November night was hot and muggy; the heat waves were lasting longer and longer into the fall now. But it wasn’t just the heat; Rosa couldn’t remember the outside world much at all and that alone scared her.

Rosa looked at herself again in the mirror and wondered what her sister Greta would have thought of her dress. She was the fashionable one, the glamorous one. Rosa thought back to one of the many nights when Greta would go out on a date wearing her favorite outfit: a forest green velvet dress with stylish pleats and shiny brass buttons, a flat-brimmed hat rakishly concealing one eye. Greta was all sophistication, a beacon of European fashion in Lodz. For Rosa, it was like having a movie star in her midst; even Garbo would have been jealous.

The phone rang twice and stopped: Debbie’s signal for Rosa to come down. She woke from her daydream, the happy image of Greta quickly receding. Rosa stood up and tottered for a moment in her shoes, the shortest stilettos that Rich was able to procure. She picked up the matching black purse sitting by the door and headed to the front of the building where Debbie was waiting next to a black SUV.

“Wow, getta a load of you, Mom. You look great! And those shoes!”

“I can barely stand in them.”

“Well, it’s only for a few hours. Geez, I never saw you so done up. You look beautiful.”

A faint smile passed over Rosa’s face; it was strange hearing these compliments. Herb, her husband, used to tell her all the time that she was “a real looker,” but she never believed him. Why should she? She was damaged goods.

Rosa settled into the SUV’s plush interior. Riding in a car; it was a night of long-forgotten pleasures. The trip from Kew Gardens to Manhattan was brisk as they sped along 495 into the Midtown Tunnel. As they neared the arena, though, there was gridlock.

“I gotta go around the block, Ms. Schwartzman,” the driver told them.

“Is there traffic up ahead?” Debbie asked.

“Another of them protests tonight. Making things a bit hard to get around.”

Rosa looked out of the SUV’s tinted windows. Amidst the crowds of people trying to get in and score last-minute seats was a large gathering of the Phoenix Party. Men and a handful of women, all white, were carrying signs that said, “The Great Jewish Lie.” A few men had AK-47s slung over their shoulders, as if they were nothing more than bookbags on the backs of innocent children on their way to school. “Holocaust=Lies,” one sign read. “Rosa is a fake,” proclaimed another. Most alarmingly, Rosa saw one sign that had a picture of a shooting target superimposed on her face.

“Don’t look at that, Mom,” Debbie said. “They’re just crazy nut jobs.”

Yes, that’s what they had thought back in Germany and elsewhere in Europe when Hitler and his followers were coming into power in the 30s. Just crazy nut jobs. They should have known better. If only these people had gone through what she had gone through, they’d never be out here shouting their stupid nonsense. All the Jews could be erased from the earth and they would still hate us, Rosa thought.

The SUV turned the corner, leaving the protestors behind, and pulled up to an entrance.

“Good luck tonight, Ms. Schwartzman,” the driver said. “I hope it goes well.”

Rosa and Debbie got out of the SUV and were immediately greeted by flashbulbs.

“Over here, Rosa! Over here!” paparazzi shouted. “How does it feel to be the last survivor?” A red carpet had been rolled out, and a few people were smiling, posing, and having their pictures taken against a backdrop splashed with the words “The Last.”

A young woman wearing a rainbow-sequined dress, looking like an escaped contestant from a beauty pageant, ran over to Rosa, mic in hand and trailed by a cameraman.

“Rosa, you look stunning tonight. Who are you wearing?” the woman asked.

Rosa was a deer in headlights. She couldn’t remember the designer’s name at all. She couldn’t remember anything. Flashbulbs kept going off and everyone was begging for a piece of her.

“Can you show us a little leg?” one photographer asked.

Rosa didn’t know which way to look or turn, but then, like Moses parting the Red Sea, Daniel emerged from the chaos, attired in a smart, well-fitting, light grey check suit, a pink pocket square winking from his breast pocket. A large grin completed the outfit, and he held his hand out to Rosa.

“C’mon. Let’s get you inside,” he said.

Daniel escorted Debbie and Rosa through security and into the building. They quickly found themselves in a different kind of frenzy. People in headsets were shouting: “Yes, we’ve got Chelsea Clinton in B2 and Elmo in B3. Roger that!” The hustle and bustle of stagehands, assistants, makeup artists, and food service teams made Rosa feel woozy. She had barely eaten that day due to nerves, stomaching just a few saltines at lunch. She hoped she wouldn’t faint.

“Well, this is it. Are you excited?” Daniel asked.

“She’s nervous,” Debbie said.

“Of course, that’s perfectly normal. Let me bring you to the dressing room to get you freshened up.”

“I’ll see you after the show, Mom. You’re gonna be great. I’m so proud of you.” She gave Rosa a kiss and a hug, and then headed off.

Daniel led Rosa down a labyrinth of hallways until they reached a small green room, far from the center of activity. Makeup was scattered about at a dressing station. In the corner was a tall, wilted plant that clearly hadn’t seen natural light in a long time. Rosa took a seat on the blue suede couch in the corner.

“Are you ready?” Daniel asked.

“No, but do I have a choice?”

“Uh, not really, but just breathe. You’re gonna inspire many people tonight. Change lives.”

Rosa made a face. As if what she was going to say that night came even close to revealing what she had really experienced. As if she would ever tell the public the full truth of what had happened to her and Greta so many years ago. Daniel and Helen had spent weeks coaching Rosa on her speech. “Rosa, darling, we need you to look happier,” Helen kept saying in their practice sessions. “You’re a symbol. An icon. Less sad death face, more smiles.”

Daniel’s phone buzzed. “It’s Helen. I’m sorry. She needs me. There’s water and snacks over there. I’ll be back in a minute.” Rosa went over to a table that was laid out with some fruit, cookies, pretzels, and what looked like a cold cut tray that had been sitting out for hours.

The door clicked behind Daniel, and the hum of activity outside disappeared again. For the moment, at least, things were calm and quiet. With so many stars to attend to, Rosa hoped that maybe they would forget all about her. She sat down again, closed her eyes, and let herself drift. Just as she thought she might fall asleep, a loud voice over the intercom woke her: “Five minutes to places! Five minutes to places!” Rosa looked at her watch, the one thing of her own that Rich had allowed her to wear: a gold Seiko with roman numerals encircled by small diamonds that Herb had given her on their tenth anniversary years ago. The door swung open, and Daniel re-entered looking frazzled.

“Everything okay?” Rosa asked.

“It’ll be fine. Helen just learned that the ‘We are the six million’ balloons hadn’t been delivered after all, so there won’t be a balloon drop at the end. She was not pleased.”

“I don’t like that woman,” Rosa said.

Daniel sighed. “She’s fine. She just knows what she wants. But that’s not your problem. Hey, you wanna watch the show from the wings until you have to go on?”

“I’m fine here. I can watch on that,” she said, pointing at the thirty-inch monitor high on the wall.

“Really? You can be up close to the action.”

Rosa shook her head. She had never been much impressed by stars. Debbie was always gushing about the latest movie so and so was in or who was wearing what on the runway, but Rosa never really cared. If she were home right now, Wheel of Fortune would be wrapping up, and despite the fact that some of the world’s top talent was just a few hundred feet away from her, all Rosa wondered was if anyone had finally won that trip to Lake Tahoe that they had been hyping all week.

“Okay, then,” Daniel said. “It’s your call. I’ll be back to get you in about an hour or so for your entrance.”

*

Daniel left Rosa, walked to the wings, and peeked out at the audience. Over the backstage speaker, he heard: “Dancers, musicians, places, please; we go up in two minutes.” Daniel’s heart beat fast; this was it.

At precisely 8:08 pm, Kiyoshi Yamamoto, the conductor of the New York Philharmonic gave the downbeat and the orchestra struck up the evening’s opening notes to “The Last: Remembering the Holocaust.” The music, composed by Alfred Jorgenssen, most known for his jingle for Tropicana orange juice (“Drop it like it’s hot, hot, hot, for OJ that’s from Trop, Trop, Trop”) began with a plaintive melody that would have been right at home in Doctor Zhivago. The orchestral prelude was accompanied by images of archival Holocaust footage, projected on screens on stage and around the arena. Hungry children with sad eyes, prisoners marching around camps, Hitler (thankfully on mute) yelling at the German masses. The visuals, which Helen had chosen herself—the only sad portion of the evening that she would allow—reminded Daniel of those Save the Children commercials he would see on TV late at night as a child. “Did you know that for just $5.99 a day or the equivalent of a cup of coffee, you can remember the Holocaust?” he expected someone to say at the end of the montage.

Yamamoto bounced and swayed, his body wringing every last bit of emotion from the musicians. The venue’s lights began to further dim, infusing the space with the feel of evening twilight. Quietly a slow pulsing drum, Bolero-like in its rhythms, began in the background as the screens on stage began to rise, ominously revealing two dozen performers dressed in dark brown and grey tattered robes, the look part-monk, part-ghetto refugee. Stage fog filled the space as the dimly lit bodies began to dance, first gliding forward, then jerking backwards, a spasmodic waltz, the world’s saddest hora, all swirling circles and sharp angles. The arena continued to grow darker until the audience found itself completely enveloped in blackness, the dancers no longer able to be seen.

Out of the void, reverberating against the Garden’s cavernous walls came the voice of Liam Neeson: “From 1933 to 1945, Germany operated concentration camps throughout Europe in which six million Jews were rounded up and murdered.” The words “Six Million” flashed in red on the screens, momentarily lighting the space and evoking “oohs” and “ahs” from the audience. “The Holocaust was, and will always be, one of history’s all-time greatest tragedies and losses of life”—the words “greatest tragedy” flashed on the screens. Neeson continued: “Tonight we are here to remember, to never forget, and to honor the lives of those who perished. Because now there is only one Holocaust survivor left, only one person who lived through the horror, only one person who can tell us the truth. That woman is Rosa Schwartzman, the world’s last survivor, and with her, tonight, we will all bear witness, with hashtag ‘we are all the six million.’ Now sit back, relax, and welcome to… ‘The Last.’”

On that cue, the Garden became an explosion of music, light, and color. White lasers flashed all over the arena while a throbbing electronic bass line underscored the building excitement. The evening’s earlier slow, orchestral, violin-heavy mood was replaced by brass and driving beats reminiscent of a John Williams film score. It seemed fitting; Helen had been calling this the Olympics of Holocaust Remembrance for weeks. The monk/ghetto refugee dancers threw off their shabby rags in a quick change, now showing off their toned and lithe bodies in tightly hugging green and yellow spandex. They began to execute complex dance steps that recalled moves from a 1980s Jane Fonda aerobics video as they sang the show’s catchy theme song with lyrics provided by Yaakov Goldfarb, an Israeli composer whose great-grandparents perished in the Shoah.

“Welcome to The Last!

We’re vanquishing the badness.

Welcome to The Last,

It’s not a time for sadness.

Now is the time to heal the ordeal.

Here is the place to express how we feel.

We all implore,

Don’t be sad anymore,

Wait till you see what’s in store.

Welcome to the Last!”

The dancers undulated and contorted before hitting their final poses, ending with a big joyous “Welcome to The Last!”

“And now, ladies and gentlemen,” Neeson announced, “your host for the evening, Ms. Oprah Winfrey.”

Daniel breathed easy. Oprah told the audience that everyone would be getting copies of Rosa’s book Just Three Stars to take home, and they whooped and hollered; the evening really would be something special.

Daniel had originally imagined a night of speeches from prominent Jewish leaders, but Helen quickly shut that down. “We need to keep the audience engaged,” she said. “Keep it light and entertaining. It’s all about getting the audience pumped for Rosa’s big entrance. You get them all worked up and then bam!: big climax.” Helen’s preliminary idea was to have Rosa lowered in from the top of the Garden in a harness, descending onto the stage like an angel, but Rosa quickly refused. “So difficult this one is,” Helen had said to Daniel.

The event didn’t need Rosa flying through the air, though. It was already a smorgasbord of entertainment. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir performed a fifteen-minute set of Yiddish lullabies. Cher, recently off of her fifth farewell tour, reimagined her classic hit, “Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves,” as “Gypsies, Gays, and Jews,” “because all the victims of the Holocaust matter, not just Jews. Gay lives matter. Gypsy lives matter, even though we should really call them ‘the Roma,’” Cher prattled on.

And what would the evening be without standup? Jerry Seinfeld did a short set: “You know the funny thing about the Holocaust? Those Nazis actually served soup! Crazy, right?” In the most solemn moment of the night, the Harlem Globetrotters formed a Star of David on the stage and silently passed around six basketballs, each in memory of one million of the six million Jews who were killed, an atrocity that they then symbolically reenacted by dunking the balls through hoops scattered about the stage. The audience ate it up, and Daniel could hear sobs as each basketball swished through the net. With each performer, the audience grew louder and louder with their applause and appreciative cheers. Snapping selfies, shooting videos, and posting it all to social media in real time, making sure that their friends, family, and followers knew that they were at the Holocaust remembrance event of the century. Time Out New York had rated “The Last” a “not-to-miss event” that week, along with the opening of a new museum dedicated to pizza and the premiere of the new Madonna jukebox musical, Material Girl.

Daniel went to fetch Rosa while the cast of Hamilton sang “Hatikvah,” and when they returned there was only one performer left before Rosa’s big entrance: The Tasha, America’s hottest rising pop star, who had grown up Natasha Samuelson in Syosset, Long Island. She’d recently gotten in touch with her Jewish roots and in her newest album had found a way to marry techno beats with distinctly Semitic content. In a moment of marketing genius, her set that evening featured a megamix of the hit singles from her newly released album Holo-caustic, which had just dropped earlier that week and was already climbing up the charts: “Work Will Make You Free (But My Love Will Heat You Up),” “Gestap-Ho,” “Ghetto Load of Me,” and an EDM remix of the classic Yiddish lullaby “Rozhinkes mit Mandlen” with its disco-inspired hook “Man-man-mandlen. Gimme that man-man-mandlen” that Daniel liked to sing along to at home while doing the dishes.

As The Tasha sang and grooved, her hips gyrating, her four-inch Star of David earrings dangling and bouncing with every unhh-unhh and yeah-yeah, she was every bit as “Shoah-tastic” as her fans expected her to be. She wore nothing but a pair of custom-designed Dolce and Gabbana striped overalls with cut-off ripped legs and sleeveless arms, a yellow star plastered on the front that said Jude. As The Tasha sang, backup dancers of all genders in black mesh tops and latex micro miniskirts twerked their asses and entwined themselves in the most sexual of positions. Standing in the wings, Daniel watched as The Tasha went into overdrive with the final number of her medley: “Shoah Me Whatcha Got Baby.”

“Cause Six,

Six Fucking Million,

are gone, gone, gone.

But our,

our love will live on, on, on.

And Auschwitz,

Can’t take that away, way, way.

‘Cause our,

our love will stay, stay, stay.

So Shoah Me Whatcha Got, Baby

Shoah Me Whatcha Got.”

And then it happened. A strap on her overalls broke, and The Tasha had a boob just waving full out in the air at the audience of 20,000. And what an audience it was: the descendants of Holocaust survivors, Hadassah ladies, Florida snowbirds, gay club kids, Upper West Side Jews, Lower East Side Jews, entertainment reporters, Gen Zers, the New York Council of Rabbis, mah jongg players, synagogue sisterhoods, day school instructors, the cast of Fiddler on the Roof, A-list celebrities, D-list celebrities, the ADL, the ACLU, the JDC, the JCCA, BBYO, JFNA, Zionists, Anti-Zionists, Zionists for Palestine, Zionists for Tibet, Tibetans for Bagels, Jews for Jesus, Jews for Justice, Jews for Jeopardy!, Kathy Griffin, and of course, The Tasha’s own legion of fans, the Tashites, who were there to dance to and record The Tasha’s every move. And once that boob was out, it wasn’t going back; it rocked out in all its glory and, as The Tasha would tell reporters in the days that followed, serve as a symbol of the liberation of the concentration camps themselves.

As her number ended, The Tasha nonchalantly tucked herself back into her outfit and shouted, “Yo! Who’s here to see my girl Rosa?” The crowd went wild, shouting its lungs out as if they were about to see Lady Gaga have sex with Jesus and then watch both of them ascend into heaven on the tire from Cats. “It’s like, fucking awesome, that Rosa is the last, ya hear, cause in my book, she’s numbah one! She’s da total bomb. A fightah. A survivah. Just like me. We’re the same, ya hear? We both been through some tough shit, so you betta be list’nen to what she has to say, ya get me?” The crowd went even more impossibly wild. They were all one with The Tasha. “That’s what I wanna hear, New York! I love you! Now say hello to Rosa! Shalom, motherfuckers!” The walls reverberated with the ecstatic deafening screams of audience members, cheering for Rosa, for The Tasha, for Oprah, for Seinfeld, for themselves, and for everyone and everything they’d witnessed so far.

“You’re gonna be great,” Daniel said to Rosa whom he had dashed to fetch from the green room. “They’re pumped to see you.”

At least most of them were; the Tashites were already heading toward the exits having seen what they came for. Rosa timidly began her walk to the dais placed center stage, thirty feet away; to her, though, the distance felt like miles. The audience began chanting, quietly at first, then louder and louder: “Rosa! Rosa! Rosa!” Rosa tried to look out at the audience, but the stage lights blinded her. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a photo of herself and Greta projected on the jumbotrons and the words: “World’s”—“Last”—“Holocaust”—“Survivor” came flashing up one at a time. Rosa re-focused on the stage and swore someone had moved the dais; it looked even farther away now. Was she even moving? She couldn’t feel her legs, but just stood frozen in place as cheers rained down on her. Suddenly she felt a gentle hand on her right arm and turned; it was Daniel leading her to the podium. “Just follow the prompter like we practiced. You’ve got this,” he whispered before stepping back into the wings, leaving Rosa center stage before so many faces eagerly anticipating her words. Her speech began to appear on the teleprompter at a pace and with pauses that made it appear as if she was initially having a series of mini-strokes:

“Thank you,

The Tasha.

That was some

performance.” [hold for applause.]

“We love you, The Tasha!” a drunk audience member shouted.

“Today, as I stand before you, the weight of history rests upon my shoulders. My name is Rosa Schwartzman, and I am the world’s last Holocaust survivor, a living connection to a time of unspeakable suffering and pine.”

Rosa stopped. “Pine? What does ‘pine’ have to do with the Holocaust? Oh no, it says ‘pain.’ Sorry, I meant ‘pain.’” Rosa panicked and turned to Daniel who gave her a big “thumbs up.” “Keep going,” he mouthed. Rosa looked at the teleprompter again.

“I stand here not only as a witness, but as a voice for those who can no longer speak, for those whose lives were cut short, and for the millions who endured the horrors of the Holocaust. Each day of my life, I have carried the responsibility to ensure that the world never forgets. It is a solemn duty to honor the memory of the millions who perished, to share their stories, and to pass on the lessons we have learned. Lessons of hope, resilience, and strength.

“I witnessed acts of cruelty so horrible that I cannot recount them for you tonight, but I also witnessed acts of kindness, compassion, and unwavering bravery. These small acts of defiance and resistance carried within them a glimmer of hope, reminding me that even in the darkest of times, the human spirit can never be completely extinguished.”

To Rosa, the speech was just empty words full of platitudes. Between the crowds and the lights, Rosa felt like she was describing someone else’s experience, not her own. But then she saw images of herself projected on the big screens around the venue. A photo of her and Greta, ages five and nine, in matching dresses and tiaras, both holding large hamantaschen as big as their heads; it was the annual Purim carnival and they both had gone as Queen Esther. The memory startled Rosa and her heart began to pound; she felt dizzy. Rosa turned to the wings to look for Daniel, but instead, impossibly standing there grinning, was Herr Schumann, the Nazi officer from Auschwitz. Attired in his tan uniform with a red swastika armband, he wore a stage manager’s headset as if about to call cues. A roar filled Rosa’s ears; her legs felt weak; all the air had gone out of the arena, and she gripped the podium. The stage began to spin, and Rosa thought she was going to faint, until she felt Daniel with her once again, steadying her.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Rosa breathed slowly and looked over Daniel’s shoulder to the wings. Herr Schumann was gone.

The audience, which had gone silent, began to chant: “Rosa, Rosa, Rosa.”

“Can you finish?” Daniel asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You’re almost done. Do it for Debbie. Do it for your great-grandkids.”

Rosa nodded. She turned back to the podium with Daniel standing by this time; the audience cheered.

“Through education and remembrance,” Rosa continued, “we can ensure that the Holocaust remains alive in the hearts and minds of future generations. It is through this understanding that we can work together to prevent such atrocities from ever happening again.

“Together, we can build bridges of empathy and understanding. We can heal the wounds of the past by fostering a world that celebrates diversity, and that cherishes the inherent worth and dignity of every individual.

“We must remember the Holocaust, so that the deaths of six million Jews will not be in vain. They will survive in our hearts and serve as lights to guide us forward to better days. As we end tonight, my message to all of you is simple: Never again. Never again. Never again.”

As Rosa finished, a huge black and white photograph of her face, lined with wrinkles, her eyes wells of sadness, filled the screens; crying could be heard throughout the arena. The audience was on its feet. “We will never forget, Rosa! Never!” people shouted.

“And now,” Rosa said, “Ms. Carrie Underwood will lead us in ‘Oseh Shalom.’” A twangy voice rang out from the speakers as images of Israeli and American flags appeared on the jumbotrons. Daniel took Rosa’s hand and led her offstage.

Back in the dressing room, Rosa was exhausted and thirsty. It was the most activity she’d had in years. “You were great, Rosa. I knew you could do it,” Daniel said.

“I was awful. I messed up some words.” Rosa sat down on the sofa and put her feet up, no longer caring about her dress.

“You’re being too hard on yourself. No matter what you did or said, the audience would have loved you.”

“But the speech is horrible. It’s meaningless.”

“It’s. . . ” Daniel paused. “It’s inspirational. Look, the world needs to remember the Holocaust, to know that it happened.”

“Of course it happened! Is anyone doubting that?” Rosa could feel a headache coming on. She wished they had some of her favorite Spliced Pea® soup on the food table. That always made her feel better.

“A lot of younger people don’t even know what the Holocaust is. They think it’s some 90s grunge band. Look, don’t worry about it. It’s done. This is a night that people will remember for the rest of their lives, and years later they’ll tell their grandchildren, ‘I remember when I saw the world’s last Holocaust survivor speak at Madison Square Garden.’ It’s one for the history books.”

Just then, the door swung open, and Helen came barging in, her eyes darting all over the place. She headed straight to Daniel. “Have you seen this?”

“Seen what?”

“We’re trending!”

“See, Rosa, I told you. You killed it out there.”

“No, not her, this.”

Helen scrolled through her feed which was filled with posts with the hashtags #tit-tastic, #HolocaustHottie, #TashaTime, and #TShoahsAll, with photos, some blurrier than others, of the body part in question.

“I mean, was that an accident or was it planned?” Helen asked. “Because if it was an accident, then thank the gods, and if it was planned, it was fucking brilliant.”

“Uh, I don’t know, but I can find out,” Daniel said, thinking that was not a question he wanted to ask The Tasha. “But what about Rosa? Are people talking about her?”

Helen began scrolling through her feed. “Okay, here we go. We’ve got #HolocaustSad, #LoveURosa, #RosaRules. I mean, it’s good, people liked her. But, oh boy, that performance. Okay, I need to talk to Joe and make sure he’s reposting all this. He’s so incompetent.”

Helen dashed out of the room without a goodbye. As she exited, a young woman with spiky green hair and a headset poked her head in. “Hey, we, uh, have some VIP ticket holders who are ready for the meet and greet. Can I let them in?”

“Shit, I forgot all about this, Rosa. I’m sorry,” Daniel said. “This will be fast, I promise.”

Rosa was too tired to protest, even though what she really wanted was to go home and climb into bed for a long, good night’s sleep.

A twenty-something skinny blonde with a great deal of makeup burst into the room wearing a large t-shirt with Rosa’s face on it that said underneath “Never again.” She held her phone on a long selfie stick and was talking full speed to an unseen audience: “Hi, guys, it’s me, Julia, and I’m here backstage at ‘The Last’ where Rosa Schwartzman, the world’s last Holocaust survivor, just brought down the motherfuckin’ house. I know last week I was all about JoJo Juice’s newest flavor Chillin’ Cherry®, but this guys, is way bigger. Let’s go and meet Rosa.”

Julia went over to where Rosa was sitting and plopped herself down on the sofa.

“Rosa, I just wanted to say that this is the most amazing show I’ve ever been to, and that includes the Kardashians’ Skanky Bitch Tour, which was hottt, with three t’s, but this is hottttt with 5 t’s, which on the Julia hot-o-meter is the highest score you can get. But can I say that after this event, I’m officially your biggest fan? I read your book after it was picked for the Good Morning, America Book Club. I mean, I didn’t read the whole thing, but I got the idea, you know? When I read about the Holocaust, all I could think is that people are just so mean sometimes. You know? How could people be that mean? The Nazis were assholes. But you! You mean so much to me.”

“I do?” Rosa asked.

“Yes! You had hope!” Julia said. “You’re such an inspiration. My mother, she was dying of emphysema, and I gave her your book and was like, you have to read this story. You wrote that you believed that you would be saved, and you were. That gave her strength.”

“And she recovered?”

“No, she died. But she didn’t die sad! Your book made things better. I just wish my mother could’ve been here to meet you.”

“I don’t know what to say, I— ”

“You don’t need to say anything, just . . . can I give you a hug?”

Without waiting for a response, Julia enveloped Rosa’s small body in her arms. Despite Julia’s young age, Rosa suddenly felt like she was the child and was being held by her own mother who long ago had made cheese blintzes on Sunday mornings with a dollop of cherries on the side. But all that was before the abyss. Rosa let herself be embraced by Julia’s smell of sweat, arena hot dogs, and the slightest hint of baby powder. When Julia let go, Rosa realized she was crying.

“Thank you for being an inspiration, Rosa. Can you say hi to my fans?”

“Your fans? Are you famous?”

“I mean, not famous like you, but I have 2.3 million followers on BestLife.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what any of that is.”

“Oh, I’m an influencer. I tell people about new products and stuff and encourage them to check it out. I’m covering this event for The Forward, which is some Jewish news thing which wanted to get some coverage to attract young people. No one else where I work at Chintz Media wanted to cover this, but I thought your book was awesome and, hey, to get paid to meet someone like you? I’m shook.”

The language Julia spoke was totally foreign to Rosa. The Forward she had heard of and had even read years ago in Yiddish, but how did a girl of her age have 2.3 million fans, and why on earth were they listening to her? An influencer? In Rosa’s day, the person who influenced you was called your mother and you did something because she told you to do it.

“Oh, and before I go,” Julia said, “do you think you could do ‘The Rosa’ with me?”

Rosa looked confused. “What’s that?”

“Oh, it’s this dance on MaxMe that I created in your honor; it’s already got a half-million likes. Here, I’ll show you.”

Julia searched for some music on her phone, which she propped up on the couch; a nondescript melody with a beat began to play.

“So it’s left arm, right arm. Hip, hip, turn. Twerk it up and down. Then hop, turn, knee to chest, wave your right hand, and salute with your left. After that, it’s grind to the left, grind to the right, then clap once, kick left, clap again, kick right.”

“I’m sorry,” Rosa interrupted. “This is all too complicated for me.”

“I think we’re out of time,” Daniel said as he escorted Julia to the door.

“It was so great meeting you,” Julia said. “Thank you so much, Rosa. And ‘Never Again!’”

Julia gave a fist pump before being swallowed up by the mob of people waiting outside to meet Rosa next.

“You’re an inspiration,” Daniel said.

Rosa, though, still wasn’t entirely convinced. Sure, this Julia person had followers, but so had Hitler. Was Hitler an influencer? Rosa wondered. How many followers would he have today on MaxMoreMe, or whatever it was that Julia was talking about? How many “likes” would he have gotten for asking his followers to kill the Jews? Before she could dwell too much more on this thought, the spiky green-haired woman opened the door again and the din of the crowd outside surged. “Hey, I have a long line of folks waiting for their turn. Can I send them in?”

Rosa was tired, but she nodded her head. She still couldn’t believe that all these people wanted to meet her. Maybe what she said had meant something after all. Rosa stood up and smoothed her dress. Soon the room was filled with people, all waiting to get their special once-in-a-lifetime moment with a Holocaust Superstar.