The fear that doesn't.

• Author: Adler, Frances Payne
• Position: American descendent of European Jews remembers

Let me tell you a story. I moved to La Crosse, Wisconsin, from California a few years ago, into a big old house on Fifteenth Street. It was built around the turn of the century, large oak-framed windows, two sun porches. The day I moved in, my landlord was painting in the kitchen, white paint on his fingers, his hair. I loved the place immediately. But for the carpets. I picked up the corner of the living-room carpet and found beautiful hardwood floors underneath. I asked him if he would take up the carpets. He was reluctant, but agreed, and we set about lifting the carpets the next day, pulling out tacks, and scraping off dried glue. I was thrilled: the floors--the original hundred-year-old floors--were in wonderful shape. My landlord began to talk about bringing in a sander and then spreading a Varathane finish. No, no, I insisted, none of that. These are just fine. I like the scratches, the spots just as they are. I want the history of the families who have lived here to keep walking through this home.

On his way out, we stood talking on the front porch. At some point, I looked above my head. On the doorframe, was a mezzuzeh. My eyes filled with tears. I was pleased, surprised. Jews had lived here before me.

What's that? he asked. It contains Jewish blessings, I said. They're rolled up inside. Anyone who enters here is blessed.

I've owned this place fifteen years, he said. Never noticed it.

After he left, I removed the layers of paint from the old mezzuzeh and tacked up mine, just a little below, and parallel to it.

Let me tell you another story. My landlord's heritage is German. I am Jewish. He is a kind, thoughtful, hard-working man. I am a kind, thoughtful, hard-working woman. We are friends. He came over last week to fix my oven. (This is not a metaphor. This really happened.) One of the heating elements had exploded one day, and needed replacing. Before he'd arrived, I'd been working at the kitchen table, writing, thinking, reading about the Holocaust. We talked, as he leaned in and out of his toolbox and the oven.

When I was in the Army, he said, I visited Auschwitz. It scared me.

In what way? I asked.

Well, you know that I'm of German descent, he said. And I'm the kind of guy who likes to do things right. It scared me to think of what I might have done, had I lived there then, and had been indoctrinated into those values. It scared me.

He fitted the new heating element into the bottom of the oven, and latching up his toolbox, he...