In this blessed way, we escaped the itchy ambivalence towards Jews that had poisoned many Christian hearts over the centuries. “Let us pray for the perfidious Jews,” we heard every Good Friday at the most solemn moment of the Christian calendar. Then, repeated throughout the Christian world, the Jewish mob’s terrible, prophetic words: ‘His blood be on us and our children.’A-ha! So the first time I heard the word “Yid” – spat out contemptuously by a wealthy Catholic girl – I knew instantly what it signified. I stare at the word as I write it and see it emerge from the Austrian woman’s tight, painted mouth.