Tadeusz Nowak's story Mojżesz [Moses], the source of the above quote, evokes many questions and doubts. In a remarkably suggestive way it demonstrates, above all, the complexities of interpersonal and multicultural relationships; their dialectical tensions based on closeness and distance at the same time. It inclines us both to ask questions about the paradoxical form of coexistence based on clear social divisions and hierarchies, and about shared experiences, which are sites of simultaneous division and separation. It invites us to think about the status of the story as regards the delayed recognition of loss or absence, as an account by a child narrator, a Polish boy, who was a passive observer of the Holocaust in a rural village.

In Nowak's story the moment of premodern difference is grasped—visible on the basis of external appearance, distinctive clothing, or social behavior. From the perspective of Polish Christian peasants, the Jewish Moses’ difference is recognizable in his appearance (clean, neat, and above all, better dressed), but also behavior and gestures recognized as not rural. The difference divides, creates distance, but also elicits care and the impulse to protect.