As a child Appelfeld had limited contact with traditional Jewish life, encountering it primarily while visiting his grandparents in the villages of Jadova and Drajinetz. During his early years he and his parents were frequently in nearby Czernowitz, the regional capital, the cosmopolitan milieu and high culture of which had earned it the nickname "Little Vienna."
In 1941 the German and Romanian armies seized control over Bukovina, and the Jewish population began to suffer the anti-Semitic measures of the Nazi regime. Appelfeld's mother and grandmother were killed immediately. The boy and his father were confined to the Czernowitz ghettto, then expelled to Trans-Dniestria. After a forced march in the Ukraine they were interned in a labor camp, but the nine-year-old managed to escape. He began a life of wandering and uncertainty, fighting for survival on his own. For the next three years he managed to live by hiding in the forests and by taking refuge at times in peasant homes in nearby villages. There he worked as a servant, keeping his Jewish identity secret. In 1944 he met up with the Red Army and served as a kitchen boy. Eventually, he made his way to Yugoslavia and Italy, spent some time in the shelter of a monastery, and joined other Jewish refugees who crowded the beaches of Naples after the war.
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