Passover for coming out of tight places

We "did" Passover this year with just the four adults - Martin, Kelly, Morey and me - and little Dahlia - not quite 2.

It was a far cry from my heights of doing it for 35 people. In those days I had both daughters and my daughter-in-law, here to help, and we Shanghai'd Martin into working too. It's an impossible job for one person.

I remember when we first were married, Morey took me to his cousins in Los Angeles for Passover. His Aunt Fanny, mother of 6, did the whole thing - and she was NOT a great cook but the whole family was there. All of the children married and with children, and some of the oldest of her grandchildren were married with children - it was a FAMILY.

I was so impressed. My family of origin - isolated from our roots in Germany - seperated from the Polish, and more observant, family - we were just the three of us and it was uphill for my Mom to get my Dad to do anything Jewish. As I think I've said, he considered himself German.

When we came to the USA, my Aunt and Uncle became our family and some of their friends - none with children - would join us for a family Seder. But they were all assimilated Jews - except my Uncle Sid. Uncle Sidney still hung onto some of the Jewishness with which he was raised. He wanted things done a certain way but took shortcuts because his "audience" was restless, unobservant and ignorant - and maybe just a little bit ashamed of being Jewish. It was such a hard label in Germany - even before Hitler.

And, I have to mention that the German Jews considered themselves a touch above the Polish Jews. So my Uncle Sid may have been trying to be more sophisticated, like the German Jews.
He was always in a hard place for that. Aunt Helen considered herself to be far away and above them all - Russian aristocracy at that. He, Uncle Sid, and we - the poor relatives pretty much had to toe the line for what she considered to be "cultured". We laughed behind her back, but we would not dare to her face - except for my Father (always the delinquent).

Certainly there was nothing for the children. I don't remember being asked to read the four questions - and afikommen was unheard of. Like I said, there were no other children there.

So when I went to the Spiszman family Seder, it was eye opening. They were observant! They, or at least Aunt Fanny, kept kosher. My father-in-law, who was the patriarch at that time, read everything - and I mean EVERYTHING. But he read it in Hebrew - so he mumbled away there at the head of the table while conversations, discussions and arguments went on at the lower levels of the table. The little kids were under the table, eating matzo so that famine wouldn't set in before the meal was served. Fanny and he daughters were in the kitchen getting everything in readiness for when we could eat...........which was late, maybe 10pm.

For me, however, it was delicious. It was a big, bustling, warm family doing something I'd never been exposed to before and that was being totally Jewish. Not half heartedly, not apologetically
and not gentile-ly (if that's a word).

After we had Toni, we had to make a decisions whether or not to go back to the Spiszman family or go with my Mother and Stepfather to my Aunt and Uncle. And the truth was, I thought I was bringing "family" to them. After all, Morey and I were the younger generation and there was little Toni, soon to be followed by Martin and Carol.

It didn't last long - Mom and my Aunt and Uncle were forever getting into violent arguments.
The pretense of a large, loving family was hard to maintain in the face of their tensions. I, of course, sided with my Mother and we went to her house for all Jewish holidays with or without the Sidney and Helen contingent.

When we started doing our own Passover Seders, we tried for a middle ground. Not the Orthodoxy of Morey's Dad, but neither the assimilated shallowness of my Aunt and Uncle.
We read from our Hagadah's and Martin, at least, had his favorite parts - as did I. I don't really know if the girls' enjoyed it, or had favorite parts. They sort of tolerated the whole thing.

Years later, we went to a Seder at a friend's house and for the very first time I was exposed to people to genuinely enjoyed the Seder - it was neither a tedious recital in an unknown language, nor a tip of the hat to a religion that had become somewhat meaningless, they loved it. Whatever other criticismn I may have had of that family, I have always remembered and envied that joy.

In my old age now, I find my religion very satisfying. It's not like Morey's family, nor like my family - nor even like my own family was in years past. It has evolved, much as I have, and has become more meaningful and satisfying and something I would like to share with my grandchildren. Hopefully with love and joy.

The title of this piece comes from a modern interpretation of the escape from Egypt across the Red Sea and into the desert. Egypt is the tight and unhappy places of our past - the Red Sea is the bridge which leads into the possibility of change but it is fraught with dangers and requires faith. The desert (where we roamed for 40 years) is the place where we evolved into a cohesive people with a promise for a future. We are always evolving - always changing - always trying to find meaning in our lives - and the promise is always there. There is a Promised Land - maybe not Israel - but a place where we can be happy, joyous and free and connect with the Force.

Drop the rock

I'm an active member of Overeater's Anonymous. Now that may sound fatuous (bad pun) to some people but I am the kind of overeater who is never full, no matter how much my stomach hurts - I'm not a normal eater. I enjoy food, I like cooking - but my eating habits have been a real problem for me for years.

So I'm happy to find a program that is NOT a diet but gives some direction and ways and means to dealing with compulsive behaviour (of all kinds).

It's a comfort to me to find that I'm not alone. There are lots of other people out there - smart, well educated, creative blah blah blah - but we all do similar things with food and it isn't a pretty picture.

It's also a comfort to me to realize that there are physical addiction aspects to my behaviour. Certain foods we call "alcoholic" foods set me off on this crazed path. Chocolate, sweets, French bread, tortilla chips, salted nuts, fresh bread of almost any kind - and I'm off to the races. So one day at a time, I don't eat them.

There's also a mental obsession involved in this kind of behaviour. My brain turns to food in almost any "tense" situation whether it's happy or sad, scary or happy. I don't believe other, more normal, people experience this. But maybe they do. Does anyone else sit reading quietly after a busy day and a "normal" dinner and suddenly "remember" that there is leftover Halloween candy in the back of the freezer and my husband probably won't notice if I eat it?
That's mental obsession.

That said - it's no easy journey this travel through a 12 step program. I've had to "find" a Higher Power I could connect with and I think I've said elsewhere that my Higher Power looks something like the Force in Star Wars - but, you know, it works for me. I can pray to the Force that I won't eat the tortilla chips in front of me and somehow I notice much later, that I haven't even thought about them again, let alone eaten two baskets of them.

Now I'm at a place where there are things I don't want to do - things I don't want to look at and these are probably core issues that I need to work on. But boy, do I resist.

The story goes that "in a stormy sea, a bunch of people are rowing to safety - one of their members is swimming like mad towards the boat, but they have a large rock hanging from their neck. Obviously, that rock is impeding the swimmer's succes in reaching the boat and the people on the boat keep yelling "Drop the rock." But the swimmer, for reasons of her own, hangs onto that rock even though she is falling further and further behind. So I need to drop my rock! The rock, for me, is composed of guilt, shame, anger, fear, anxiety, pride, self judgment, - you name it. I need to reach my boat...............will I be able to drop that rock? Tune in ..................etc.

Time and Place

I'm in a discussion with the City of Berlin on their offer of a trip "home" for me and my husband. Born a Berliner - it makes me acceptable. Let's not even go to all the times and places I would not have been acceptable as a Jew.

So, I ruminate on "following the rules", "being on time", "doing as I'm told"...........all the melodies of my childhood, leaking into my past, my present, and probably my future.

It's a family joke that I'm hours early for any appointment. We get to parties before the hostess is out of the shower; my husband drags me back - wait, he says, we'll leave in 15 minutes - or 20 minutes...and my heart starts pounding and my sweat glands start revving up. My blood pressure probably goes up too.....and the longer we wait, the higher it gets.

So I've thought on this before - how my Mother especially was always early, always anxious, always pushing her way forward - (to my great embarrassment, so NOT English )- always
rummaging in her capacious purse for "papieren" - papers. Now I realize it wasn't just paper
it was PAPERS...official documents that meant life or death. In a convalescent home, mentally "gone" for years, she clutched her big purse filled with tissues and became "difficult" if it was out of her hands.

She kept every "official paper" she ever got. I threw out 30 years worth of utility bills when we moved her in with us - and you know, sometimes it worked.!! Sometimes that drift of papers produced something that solved a problem or resolved an issue. And I have something of that in me - great anxiety about dealing with "officaldom" - I always told my husband to deal with banks, insurance companies, taxes - not just because I'm lazy but I'm scared I won't say or do the "right" thing and will get "into trouble".

When I was little, I was my Mom's translator. She was scared to death of officialdom and felt her English wasn't good enough so there I was "translating" for her at 7 or 8. Yet, she didn't "know" I could understand German. What a mental trick that was for her - to know and not to know.

Now I know why so many Jews marched quietly, obediently and trustingly to their deaths. It is a deeply ingrained - at the core of us - to be that way. It's how we are raised, how we are treated and how it betrayed us. My Father was somewhat of a truant, a rebellious kid - on the one hand he believed completely in obedience, following the rules and not talking back - but he, himself,
was not always that way and it saved us.

Books vs. Movies

Another 2am post. It's not that I'm so prolific, it's just that I can't sleep and my mind twirls and twirls so I might as well put it on paper.

Tonight we watched "Into the Arms of Strangers" - a documentary derived from the book of the same name.

It was hard enough reading these people's stories - but watching them being interviewed as they told them, watching them still trying to be the "brave, good, child" - watching them "being English" and stiff upper lipped as they struggled with their pain and loss, 50 years or more ago, was very emotional, for me.

It was the men, more than the women who got to me. Men of that generation were not expected to be, nor allowed to be emotional but at the end, one of those big, sturdy looking men said that he and 3 of his friends had decided that if "anything like this should ever happen again, they would die with their children with them and not send them away" - said with tears welling up and threatening his dignity. All those years and still the pain of the "abandonment"
was evident. He said that he and his friends said they would take in each other's children - but never send them away.

Another man who had suffered, it seemed to me, more than anyone and had spoken of his life with tough, and unemotional stoicism said, with tears threatening to break through, that he knew why he had survived all that had happened to him - it was for his children and grandchildren to have the opportunity to live on - he was too much the gentleman to give the Nazis the finger - but it was there along with the pain, in his voice.

It is one thing to read about what the Kindertransport did to the children even as it saved their lives, it is another to watch them try to speak about it with a cool clarity as they talked about the seperation from their families, the "not knowing" what had happened to them, the worry about
what might have happened, the loss of everything they knew at a time in life when they should have experienced a totally different life - one of joy, security and flourishing intellect and creativity.

One person, in particular, tore at my heart because he loved his adoptive family and they loved him. So when his parents survived and came for him (and he was one of the very few whose parents survived - very few) he was torn away AGAIN from the love and security of his family.
His parents had become strangers. Seven years old when sent to England, sixteen when his family of origen came for him - they were strangers. So his heart was broken, yet again. There was no recourse - he couldn't stay with his adoptive family when his family of origen wanted him - and he couldn't bend and adjust AGAIN.

People are adaptable - it's mankinds greatest gift.......but it's not infinite and some people break when tested. No-one knows how they would be if tested - or what they would do in such circumstances.

One woman's Father had been unable to part with her and actually pulled her out of the window of the train as it left the station. She ended up in a concentration camp - eight of them in fact -
survived the war (but her parents did not) and was "rescued" at the end of it weighing 58 lbs. And "lucky" to be alive. What a choice to have to make - but who knew the depths to which the German people sank in those years. And, for me, who knows that it couldn't happen again.

Kindertransport or not

I've just finished the book "Into the Arms of Strangers" - I learned more about my own experience as a child from that book than I have in other books I've read and searched through.

I was NOT in the Kindertransport. But, once we got to England in 1939 and war broke out - 6 weeks later - my parents had to find a place for me. My Mother had a "housemaid" visa and had to work and no house that wanted a maid wanted a 2 year old to go with her.

Mom oftened mentioned Bloomsbury House - usually as some kind of resource or assistance agency. In the book, they mention that Bloomsbury House was the clearing house for people who were interested in taking in a refugee child. Apparently Jewish agencies flooded England with ads asking people to help in this way. The Jewish agencies raised money to help subsidize the children's living. So desperate families sent their children to England and "strangers" took them in "until the parents could rejoin them" or "until visas to some other country came through".

They also mention in the book that a religious sect, Christadelphians, was one of the groups that Bloomsbury House used to find families to match to the children.

Mr. and Mrs Tom Sims (Ivy) - to me Tanta and Mr. Sims - took me in. They were Christadelphians although I don't remember any religion being mentioned in their home. So their purpose was not to convert but to only "save" the Jews. There were other religious groups who took in the children to convert them. The Sims also had a little girl, Miriam, who was about 9 or 10 months younger than I was. Maybe they thought that was a good fit but I didn't "register" Miriam as a person until I was about 3 when I remember (and still have) a photograph being taken of us and I "knew" she was the favored child. At that time I didn't know why.

The book lists the stories of some of these children - some good outcomes - some not so good. Most never saw their parents again.

These children were older than I. I don't know if 2 year olds were in the Kindertransport - I can't imagine how they would manage such toddlers in the mob scene of travel and discomfort.
But.......there were children 7, 8, 10 etc. Old enough to know and remember but maybe not understand completely the whys and wherefores that made their parents desperate enough to do such a thing.

There were comments later in the book from the children about how their experience affected them. I found these very helpful as they describe much of my emotional life. They describe lives that were lived in "trying to be good" "trying to be helpful and not create problems" .
They describe lives lived in anxiety that they would be sent away, or abandoned. Their fears hovered over them in all situations and they couldn't talk about them except to each other and often not then. They often had trouble "connecting" with people and felt alien and isolated.
They were angry at their parents and even if reunited (which was rare) they could not resume their earlier relationship with them, although most loved their parents and were loved.

They talk about the culture shock of coming to England. Different food, different clothes, different manners, different attitudes - especially as to "warmth". Many mention the English as being standoffish and cool, not given to expressing emotions while they came from Jewish or European homes where emotions were evident and expressed and children were cherished.

I certainly remember sitting on Tanta's lap and wishing she would hold me close and hug me but she would never do that. I was out on the furthermost reaches of her knees - a long way from love.

Many years later, we visited my foster sister, Miriam, in England. Her son had been away for some reason, for a whole year (he was about 20). When we were there, he came home - he walked in the door and she remained seated, smiled and said "Oh, hullo. You're back."
I was in shock - and I was an adult - because I would have met him at the station - hugged and kissed him and fussed over him for the next couple of hours with the joy of reunion. I realized then how different "her people" were and what a wrench it would have been for me. My Mother gushed and fussed over me and I knew I was loved and counted on that physical and emotional warmth.

There was more in the book but I haven't really digested it all - I just found it helpful. I sent copies to Carol and Martin because they have little kids and I thought they'd be interested.
I'm not sure why I didn't send one to Toni - maybe because she has too many other things going on to be interested even though she has children of the age of the Kindertransport kids.

I'm thinking of writing to the writer of the book and asking if she knows anything about situations like mine - not organized transport - but the shuffling around trying to find
"adoptive" parents and jobs for the refugees.

I haven't been able to find anything by Googling "Bloomsbury House", but there must be some information out there.

The elephant in the living room

I just realized that, like alcoholic families, Holocaust survivors often deny what has happened to them and their loved ones. Or, worse, they don't talk about it at all. I learned that and rarely spoke about my history unless people probed - and then I shook inside until they stopped probing.

My family didn't talk about it - not in my presence anyway.

I think I mentioned that I am going to share my Bat Mitzvah with my cousin, Sigfried. He died in Auschwitz when he was four - I don't know why four is any worse than six - but it horrifies me. I see my kids and grandkids at that age and I know there would have been no mercy.

But ----I went onto the site for Yad Vashem - the Holocaust memorial in Israel and found his name - and that of his Father, my uncle and his Mother, my Aunt Rosie. Complete with dates of birth, location from which they were arrested and the date of their deaths at the camp. And all of this was in my Mother's handwriting in 1973. SHE KNEW all the way back then what had happened but never told me - never talked about it - never brought them up - I am sure to save me pain - and to save herself pain and guilt because I do know she suffered guilt.

Forgive me if I've said all this before - I find it so inexplicable. SHE KNEW.

I've been reading "Into the Arms of Strangers" about the Kindertransport specifically to England. I don't even know if there was one to anywhere else. I was too young, I think, at two to go with them. But in many ways my experience was like theirs. I read their stories and think
how easily things could have gone the other way, and how I'm blessed - there were 1,500,000
CHILDREN under the age of 18 killed by the Nazis. Jewish children. Killed by a people literate, cultivated, educated, composers, poets, writers, artists, scientists - not just by bully boys - killed by their neighbors and friends - people they had grown up with, camped with, gone to school with.

I'll never understand - there is no explanation - nothing. The search for it to make sense is one, I think, better minds than I have attempted. No sense.

Modern Politics

What is wrong with our politicians today? Don't they understand the first thing about getting things done? When did compromise become a dirty word?

I'm furious at the logjam in Washington and in the California legislature.

This country is in a mess, and all the politicians can think of is getting re-elected. They play to the most narrow of the electorate and they create objectives that cannot be accomplished without compromise. So the liberals are demanding they get everything they want - like spoiled children they stamp their feet and say "All or Nothing". Thanks Mr. Kucinovich.

The conservatives are even worse - they live in a state of denial. They insist they are Christians and want a moral society, but they work against the poor, the indigent, the sick and the minorities. Then they lie to them and frighten them each so that they are all at each others throats. Thanks

Senator McConnell.

The voices of reason are not only drowned out but vilified. This morning's newspaper had an article about a moderate (if there is such a thing any more) Senator who was "thinking of voting with the Democrats on health care"....and the you-know-what hit the fan. The man will end up being tarred and feathered if the rest of his party has their way.

I blame Gingrich. He started this policy of non-negotiation and treating the opposite party as the enemy rather than someone to work with to arrive at some kind of middle ground.

It feeds the lowest common denominator - fear. And it works!

In some kind of incomprehensible way, poor people are voting against a system that is trying to work to help them. People who live in public housing are voting against health care; people who depend on Social Security are voting against taxes; people who want higher education are voting against school bonds..... etc. etc. It's like the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing and they are both working to destroy the body politic.

On some level people don't realize that the very things they demand like good roads, firemen, police departments, higher education, health care, social services for the poor, libraries, armies all are paid for with taxes. To hear them scream you'd think the taxes all went for junkets and partying in Washington. And yes, I'm not stupid, I realize that some of that goes on - but the vast majority of our taxes goes to US - the people.

I'm proud and happy to pay taxes to support the quality of services, education and a whole gamut of wonderful things like national parks, and environmental controls and the FDA. I don't want to live in China.

It frightens me because this kind of immobilizing behaviour sets the scene for demagogues and tyrants to run the show. It's from this base that Nazi Germany arose and I could name a lot of other places worldwide and in history where this is true. Does this mean that democracy doesn't work? I don't think so - but it does mean that like marriage, both sides have to be committed to the concept of the whole.

You cannot work for narrow interests that damage the whole. You cannot achieve success for the whole if the parts are fighting among themselves. All you do is prepare the ground for a strong dictator to take over - and it is in his interest to keep all the various parties fighting and oblivious to the takeover.

So watch carefully out there - some one is looking for his opportunity.

My Bitchiness on view

I'm studying for my adult Bat Mitzvah. I'm one of 10 women in the class. Some of us came from knowing almost nothing of Hebrew and little about the prayer service. A couple are converts.
I'm somewhere in the middle - My Mother taught me the aleph-bet's when I was little but not how to read Hebrew. I've heard the prayers most of my life - one way or another.

One of the women in my class has spent 20 years or more in a Buddhist type commune. I don't know the details of her life, but she has obviously left and returned to Judaism. Whatever she does she does thoroughly and is a perfectionist - she'll probably end up as a rabbi. Meantime she has married and is in the throes of a bitter divorce.

I give all this background because she has become the bane of my existance in the class.
From the beginning she pushed to sing every solo song, say every pray, do every aliyah and dominate every discussion.

Since none of the rest of us are that anxious to take on the "performance" aspect of the service, we've let her - and unfortunately so has the teacher who is a nice lady with poor boundaries.
This individual tends to put on earphones when the rest of us are practicing our prayers in class and frequently is saying her own prayers during the class. She has been told time and time again in this class and others that she is being disruptive and disrespectful. She says "I'm sorry" but it has no meaning.

So admittedly - I'm jealous. I love some of these prayers and had hoped to sing them at least along with the class (I just wrote an email to the teacher asking if this is forboten in the format of the Bat Mitzvah - if I were in the congregation, I would naturally sing along with every prayer). But at this point I feel as though this is "A" 's Bat Mitzvah and we are the backup singers.

She insisted on taking on the longest parsha in the Torah reading too. The minimum amount to
"pass" is 3 verses. I took on 3 verses. Most of the others have taken on 3 verses. A couple of women who can read Hebrew very well (their past training didn't take them all the way to a Bat Mitzvah but they didn't lack the education) are taking on 4-5 verses. "A" I believe has six or maybe it's 10. Whatever!

You get the picture.

Last night in class I was reading my prayer and struggling a little with it and "A" starts singing another prayer (there were only four of us in that class last night). I found the singing very distracting and I was struggling and stopped - the Teacher said "What's wrong, you look like you are going to cry" and indeed I felt that frustrated and I pointed to "A" who was continuing to sing. The Teacher started to remonstrate with her but another student pounced on her and told her off.
Told her she was selfish and self involved and disrupted the entire class for her own needs.
She ("A") apologized.....again. I finished up - but later counted out how many parts she had in the service.

I don't know how I'm going to handle this. I don't want to drop out. I've learned my Parsha - I like my prayer. I enjoy Saturday morning services. I've told "A" twice, that she should have her own seperate Bnai Mitzvah as she wants to do everything - but she doesn't get the "hint". If I continue to complain, then I'm the problem - at least to me.

There are 3 - 3minute speeches to be given as part of the service. I swear if "A" gets one of those, I'll lose it. She'll want it no doubt. And everyone else is stage shy and not anxious to stand out individually - but does that mean that we'll let her do it? And, if she does, she'll be good - for sure. Or maybe not. Alternatively, do I want to speak? Maybe -

So how do I handle this stage hog? I've tried speaking up - but indirectly. Last night was the most bluntly anyone has talked to her and I doubt it penetrated her thick hide. It's really up to the Teacher to set limits - but she's pretty disorganized and has poor control over the class in the first place and I think setting limits is not her strong suite.

The thing is - I'm pretty committed to this process as part of my spiritual growth. I wanted it to be meaningful, beautiful and spiritual - I knew there was some stage fright and performance anxiety involved, but I've overcome that in the past and felt I could do it again. But how spiritual is this going to be if there is a tug-of-war with "A". (who seems to think she warrants special treatment). Do I want special treatment? Well, maybe - I am the oldest in the group.
I'm one with direct Holocaust loss and experience - though I think there is another somewhat in the same position. Does that give me any special consideration? Why do I think so? Because I was raised to give deference to the aged - obviously that doesn't mean others feel the same way.

I also think I should have been singled out - although my anxiety rises at the thought. I also have inner voices condemning those who push themselves out to perform, who think they are better than others - on some level I think I should be selected for my own merits but I should not have to say so. I think my voice is better than "A"s although she is in chorus. But I could be wrong about that - sometimes I think I'm singing OK and then I realize I'm off key - something that never used to happen. So I'm not that secure about my singing voice any more either.

Well, all this reminds me of years in school wanting to be noticed but afraid to be singled out.
Wanting to be the best, but have no self confidance that I was inded the best. Thinking I could do better than someone else, but not wanting to challenge them. And most of all, not standing up for myself because I've been taught that to do that was shameful, and indicated selfishness
and self conceit.

I guess we never stop learning about ourselves, unless we are "A".

This is probably not the last I'll write about "A". From the OA point of view, it's an opportunity to learn something about myself - probably something I'd rather not know but need to work on.

The Death of Children

Sorry guys, but I'm in an emotional state right now.

I had decided to include my cousin, Sigfried, in my Bat Mitzvah this year as he had no chance to
have his own.

Last week someone came to our class from the "Remember Me" organization where they provide names and available histories to Bar/Bat Mitzvah kids so they can choose a child of the Holocaust to share in their Bar/Bat Mitzvah. He had some lists of kids for us to look at and choose from. I told him of my decision and he gave me a resource to check and see if anyone had done this before for Sigfried.

Today I went to that site and found two things I didn't know before. 1. Sigfried was younger than me - that means he was FOUR years old when they gassed him. (I had thought him to be 6 - like that makes a huge difference) 2. The letter of witness that was available to view on that site was written by my Mother!! She never told me - either than she knew or that she reported it to Yad Vashem in Israel.

I rips me up to think of that innocent little boy being killed for no reason other than his Jewishness. And, it rips me up to think of my Mom carrying all this pain and never talking of it. She KNEW in 1973 that Josef (Jussel), Rosie and Sigfried had ended up at Auschwitz and when.
I only got verification of it last year from the Red Cross.

I still have to find out whether anyone has used his name for their Bar or Bat Mitzvah partner. I doubt it - there were so many, so many.

I have to go back to the site to see if there are other Baendels or, for that matter Sauers to sort through. For that matter, I'll look up my Grandma Martha's maiden name. She came from a family of 12 children - all of whom were married, and some had children of their own. I figured out that there had to be 60 people in my immediate family on my Father's side and he used to say it was a small army when his family got together. There might be a lot more names I can track, at least from the sons of that family. Does it help to know? I don't know. I just need to do it. The website is: http://www.yadvashem.org/ and I looked under the section titled "names".

This is harder than reading of the thousands - it's personal. I think of my own kids and grandkids at four - just past babyhood, but still sweet and innocent. Not that it's OK at any age, my Grandmother must have been in her 60's. But for me, it's the children that hurts so much.

Kurt

I said I'd write about my Father - but that's treacherous territory.

I didn't know my Father. For one thing, he wasn't one to share his feelings and thoughts - certainly not in my hearing. I only lived with him 10 years. He left when I was one to go to England. He had found a way out of Germany - which I thank him for. He was a plumber and was able to find a job helping build a refugee camp in England. For this work, he was promised a visa to New Zealand for his family.

From England, he could see what was happening in Germany more clearly. In Germany, from what I read, the Nazis had clamped down on all radio and printed news so that the view from inside the country was one of paranoia. All the rest of Europe was planning to crush Germany and the Jews were instigating communism world wide with Germany as a major target. Or so they told everyone and amazingly the people of Germany swallowed it whole.

My Dad might even have believed it himself if he weren't Jewish. He was a loyal and proud German and I did hear him talk about his pride in his country at the 1936 Olympics. He hated England and France for the sanctions they imposed on Germany after World War I and the economic distress it caused in Germany - something he and his family had suffered from.
His Father (Sigfried) had died from wounds received as a soldier fighting for Germany.

But to get back to the story, from England Dad saw what was happening and after Kristalnacht he wrote my Mother to go - to leave - she had been trying to sell the business and collect what she could of their possessions to ship to England. I think she was also tied to her Mother and sister waiting to see which way they would jump.

But leave she and I did. The war broke out six weeks later.

So there we were in England - My Father was put in a camp for enemy aliens - after all he could have been a spy. My Mother was told that she would have to find work or go back to Germany -
(I'm sure this was in the 6 week period before the war actually started). So there my Father was in a camp full of men (women apparently weren't suspected of spying). He complained of the food, the crowding, the sanitation and he was sure the English put something in the food to
dampen his sexual energy.

Dad got into trouble - I think he might have been drunk, but he was cursing the King - and was arrested. My Mother was never clear as to how he disentangled himself from that mess, but clearly he was intemperate and that posed a danger to himself. He was given a choice to join the army or work on the land, but not until he spent about a couple of years in camps and working in a soap factory but under personal restraint. The soap factory was in Whitchurch - actually quite near the house where I lived with Sims, but I don't ever recall seeing my Father while he was there. My Mother, when she came to visit, would walk me down to the factory and point and tell me my Father was there, but squint I did, I couldn't make out the shapes and forms to be people, let alone my Father.

I was four when we were reunited as a family and moved to the farm. I remember him at that time as a big man who could be funny and fun but was mostly rather dour and depressed. He often carried me on his shoulders and since he had a funny walk, it was rather like riding a camel. The best times I remember then was snuggling in bed with my parents on mornings when we could be more relaxed. I run hot, so they called me their little stove.

There were times when I climbed onto my Father's lap and felt safe and secure there, but I quickly got "too old" to do that.

I never mentioned that while he and my Mother were early in their marriage, he was hit by a car while riding his bike. He was badly hurt and spent almost a year in a hospital in a body cast. One leg was always shorter than the other after that and that is why he walked "funny". I don't think I was born at the time.

In many ways my Father felt cheated. His Uncle short circuited his education and saw to his becoming a plumber which my Father never really liked. He had lost his own Father young and
was pretty much on his own - with his brothers. And now his country took away all his rights as a citizen, took away his citizenship, his livelihood and his roots. He was dependant on the good will of a people he hated and wanted no part of. He didn't even like the language and had trouble learning it.

All this I've intuited - from things I overhead, things I remember him saying and my "reading" of history of the time and thinking of how that history fit with what I remember of the man.

He was a hard worker and industrious and it saved him. They liked him on the farm and when we came to the USA, he made friends, was able to get into the plumber's union and get certified.
If he had lived he wanted to have his own business - and I'm sure he would have. But he died of stomach cancer when I was 14. He was 46.

By then we were in Los Angeles. I still didn't know him very well. I would catch him looking at me when we were still in England and he looked bewildered and disenchanted (or so I thought).
He didn't really know me either, he had missed most of my early years and when we were reunited I was this little English girl who knew no German, wasn't German in any way he understood and I was a GIRL. My Mother had told me he was disappointed I wasn't a boy so I knew I had to "make up for being a girl". I don't think I succeeded.

My Father made a lot of things - he was handy - and he tried most anything. He made pots and pans for my Mother to cook with. He made me toys of wood and showed me how to make little boats to float in the rain barrel. He and my Mom would make sauerkraut (yuck) but they liked it. In Los Angeles, he fixed up an old house and built a patio. He and I liked eating breakfast together on the patio in the hot weather. He was not a talker though and he and my Mom spoke German between themselves - naturally. I don't think they realized that I understood a good deal of what they were saying but even though I understood it, a lot of it went over my head.

In England, Daddy had no friends that I ever saw or heard of. He and my foster Father, Tom Sims, would get into political arguments that got pretty heated but I don't think they were friends.

I always had the feeling that my Dad's situation in England made life difficult - if not impossible. He wanted to leave England as soon as the war was over - and we did.

In the USA,
he was much more relaxed - and, of course, the war was over. Living in tensions and fear in England had a great effect on him. Here in the USA, we played cards together; we bought a house and a car and socialized - often with the Raaymakers but most often with my Aunt Helen and Uncle Sid and their friends - a small group of German Jews - expatriats all. We went for drives in the country and to the beach.

Ah, the beach. My Father was the only one in that group who played - he swam. He was a diver
who was good at it even though he was pretty fat. When I learned how to swim he became more interested in me and we swam together at the city pool - sometimes at the beach. The others all sat on the grass up on the palisades of Santa Monica. We, my Father and I, trudged to the water and got wet!

My Father seemed happiest when he was with his friends - especially Uncle Ray (Raaymaker).
They often worked together and Uncle Ray - who was Dutch but had lived in the USA for a long time - showed him the ropes. The house we bought in Los Angeles, was near Uncle Ray - that's how we ended up in this community with few Jews and far from the Jewish areas of the city.
My Father never really was Jewish in the same way as my Mother. He didn't live and breathe it.
He was German first and foremost and he had lost that.

He started having stomach pains in October or November of 1951 and was diagnosed has having an ulcer. He was put on a special diet for ulcers, but nothing helped. He got worse and worse and was hospitalized at Cedars of Lebanon. They must have done surgery on him because that was when we found out it was stomach cancer and had spread to the liver.

After that he was in and out of the hospital. Unable to work. They tried radiation therapy on him but that seemed to make it worse, not better. He spent his last weeks at home in terrible pain. Mom learned how to give him morphine shots but it was a pretty bad time for us all.
He died May 7, 1952. He was buried - with my Uncle paying for part of the funeral - at this Jewish cemetary in Hollywood. I didn't realize at the time how much I would miss him and how he stabilized our family and my Mother. He was way too young to die.

Movies, movies, movies

We saw "Crazy Heart" last night. What a disappointment. We went because Jeff Bridges won the Academy Award for acting and I have to admit he was good. But I don't think he was better than Colin Firth in "A Single Man" and I don't think the movie told us anything new about people . Maybe I've seen too many movies, but it was been there, done that and seen it better.

I don't know how long the movie was but it was at least one and a half hours of watching him booze, throw up, drool, sweat and smoke. I didn't believe the love story for one minute. What woman - other than maybe an alcoholic - would want to make love to and with someone so smelly, dirty and drunk. The young and pretty love interest didn't come across as a "groupie" fan, someone enamoured of his "fame" nor did she seem like someone who would put herself and her child into a situation the put them in jeopardy and every moment around someone like the main character was dangerous. She even says that at one point.

The "happy ending" of his recovery was just thrown in at the end and the likelihood of it's success was dubious. For Pete's sake, his best friend - a recovered alcoholic - runs a bar. And our lead character admits to "being drunk all my life" - well, that's no recommendation for a quick and permanent recovery - and no sign of insight on his part.

It could have been better. I'm not a writer or director, but there were depths unplumbed, and
character development left to the imagination - if at all. It was all "country music" acted out.

That said, I did like some of the music - but not enough to buy the record.

Spring has sprung - well almost

We drove to Oakland to see Dahlia yesterday.

What a beautiful drive it was. The day was sunny and bright with blue skies and only puffy white clouds to be seen. The landscape is greener than Ireland - even the cows looked clean and posed. The latest "Clo" billboards read "Support your local cow." and "Go ahead, milk my day."
Silly, but always fun to see.

Things are in bloom - I love it. As I showered this morning I looked out the window and noticed that the plum tree is covered with white flowers. Now the plum tree is BIG so you'd think I'd notice it right away but it's situated in such a way that you can only see it at certain angles from the bathrooms and from one corner of the kitchen.

I've always disliked the way our house is laid out so that the beauties of the backyard are not visible from any room in the house except the bathrooms. We added a beautiful sliding glass door to one of the back bedrooms so now you can see the yard from there - we call it the Garden Room. But even then, unless you go into the bedroom you don't see the yard.

Some people have visited my house many times and not even noticed we have a big back yard.

Next will be the crabapple trees. We have a pink one in the backyard that always reminds me of a '30's tap dancer with it 's fluffy pink top and skinny legs. The one in the front yard is white - who knew there were so many varieties of crabapple?

The Japanese maples are beginning to unfurl their leaves. The two in the front yard we chose because one gets its leaves in the spring in red and then turns green later in the year and the other gets its leaves in the spring in green and then turns red later. We have a backyard maple but I don't remember which way it goes. I do know that at some point it is almost purple.

The daffodils have been blooming for a while. I usually buy a bag of bulbs and scatter them around the front yard - either daffodils or tulips. I do the planting in November - but I don't do the planting any more, I do the buying and then Morey plants them for me. It's among the many things I can't do in the yard.

I hope we get a display of California poppies. They come and go as they please - sometimes in carpets of orange color and sometimes just a few little clumps. One of the most wonderful experiences I ever had in my life was to drive out to the desert in Southern California in the spring and see miles and miles of poppies. Now I know where the scene in the "Wizard of Oz" came from where Dorothy is running through fields and fields of poppies and falls asleep. They didn't have that effect on me. But OH! it was sooo wonderful.

There were also streaks of different colors on the hills - purple, yellow, white - like a giant paintbrush had streaked them. It was never as lavish again as that first year but certainly always wonderful. That is one of the things I miss about Southern California. There aren't many.

I usually go to at least one tour of gardens - many of which are offered here in Sonoma County.
I love to see what people do - sometimes in the tiniest plot of land. I'm less impressed with the people who have thrown tons of money and experts at an "estate". Although I can't say I don't like those gardens - they just have less joi d'vive.

It's one of the blessings of living in Sonoma County - the love of gardening. We have tons of nurseries, some with very narrow offerings - Japanese maples only; palms only and one with flesh eating plants only.

When I did home health nursing, I would love to stop at different nurseries inevetibly coming home with tubs of this or that that was on sale or caught my eye. I must have 50 rose bushes now and poor Morey (well, not so poor, he really likes doing it) does the fertilizing and pruning with the help of our gardener.

I'm a scatter shot gardener. I buy what attracts me in the nurseries and plonk them down in any spot that seems to fill the bill. Oh I started with a general plan but often the plants don't like the soil, the sun or lack of it, or our haphazard care. But the survivors encourage me to buy more of the same.

Someone once told me that when you move to a new area, look and see how the public buldings and parks are landscaped and you will know what survives and does the best in that area. It certainly helped to know that when we moved here because it wasn't at all like Southern California where we lived before. There I could plant geraniums and they grew like weeds but here they are more delicate and die off easily first frost. There I planted bouganvillea and it too covered walls and fences with bold color - but it doesn't do well here. For which Morey is grateful as they have wicked thorns and he, as trimmer, would get clawed to pieces.

I am grateful to my tried and true plants who come through drought and floods and keep on blooming. The little primroses I pick up at the drug store are out there now in full flower and I plan to get some more. I am a rescuer of "old" plants too. If I see a counter with offerings that have passed their bloom or look tired I snap them up because I know with a little attention they will revive and flourish. OK so I'm cheap too. I never buy annuals. Damn, if I'm going to plant them I want them there forever.

So that's Helga's guide to gardening. I'm not like Annecia who takes classes and reads books and is out there every day (well I would be if it weren't for my back). But I'm happy with my garden and when I finally move I won't come back because I won't want to see what has happened to it.

It's not like Los Angeles - there we had a pool - which I still miss and the gardening was around the periphery of the pool. Not as much or as intense - I didn't have the time then to pursue my interest. Now I have the time but not the physical ability. Who knew?

Early this week I think I over-exercised on my equipment and the pain was pretty bad the next day. I haven't had pain like that in a long time and I was frightened because there have been times when it was months before the pain let up - or I even had to have surgeries. But fortunately it was only a couple of days and I was back to my lower level of pain. I just can't challenge my back or I pay a high price.

But I can still enjoy the garden even if it's just to look - and, of course, keep on being creative with a little help from my husband and gardeners.

And I never got to Dahlia and the zoo. Maybe next post.

Slowing down

I suppose I'll slow down eventually - after all how much memoir writing can I do? But, for right now, there has been a general stirring up of past history and reading about the Holocaust is part of that. I just finished - thank G-d - the book on the years 1938-1945 dealing with the Holocaust. It was hard reading with no happy endings. Even as I read of the death of Hitler and Goebels, it was not with any satisfaction - only relief that it was over.

According to the writer of the book, the Nazi's kept killing Jews right up until the last minute hoping to destroy as many of them as possible before the Allies arrived to shut down the camps and roll up the Nazi army. Some 50,000 Hungarian Jews were killed in the last WEEK of the war. The crematoriums burned out from "working so hard without stopping".

Maybe I'll sleep better now. But maybe not. Two night ago I woke to hear a loud knocking at the front door and my first thought was "They've finally come to get me." Of course, my second thought was maybe my neighbors were in trouble, or maybe the wind chimes were keeping the neighborhood awake and .......but it was none of those things. It was my half sleep/half nightmare growing yeastily out of my reading.

I don't think I'm through reading about the Holocaust but maybe I'll just take some time out to read less disturbing material.

I've been reading for the Book Club "Loving Frank" - a book about Frank Lloyd Wright and one of his mistresses (one of the more infamous mistresses). I don't know why this book got such wide acclaim. I could neither feel the "passion" that pulled those two people together, nor sense from the writing the restlessness and dissatisfaction of his mistress, Mame - who left her husband and two children to run off with FLW (who left a wife and 6 children). Somehow we are told that she was too intelligent, too well-educated to settle for being a wife and mother. Well that certainly annoyed the hell out of me. This was a woman who, in the 1920's, was college educated and had a profession as a librarian - she was already bucking the standards and values of the times - it just made no sense to me, even for allowing that I don't necessarily understand the sensibilities of a woman of that time.

We've read a variety of unsatisfying books this year. I find myself being very critical of them all and picking them apart with frustration. Incoherent, mixed author voices, sliding time periods - one filled with Spanglish slang with no translation.

I'm going to recommend a couple of books for next year that I hope others will enjoy as much as I did. "The Zookeepers Wife" - while not a perfect book, was interesting and intriguing. "The Help" was a wonderful book (and they'll be happy to know it's not about WWII). This year I recommended "The Book Thief" and "People of the Book" both with either a Jewish or WWII theme. But that's what's been interesting me lately.

Still it's nice to discuss books with other book lovers - even if we disagree we have some interesting exchanges and sometimes thought provoking ones.

One book we read, not really a very good book, "Shadow Catcher", produced a very interesting discussion on what do we know about history, and how do we know it's "True". Isn't all history a product of the writer's imagination and culture? So what is truth?

Last year I read several books - some novels - on the subject of Henry VII (Henry VIII's father),
and Edward IV all to better understand Richard III who was briefly king between those two.
The killer, supposedly, of the "little Princes".

What wonderful books they were and how they turned you this way and that looking at the different perspectives, the different sources, and the different points of view. My very respected Thomas More lied through his teeth about Richard III.

I don't think I could recommend any of those books for the Book Club. They come under the heading of historical fiction - which it turns out is almost all history.

In "Shadow Catcher", the story is told of a famous - and real - photographer who photographed magnificent photos of Native Americans. Those photographs are iconic. It's what we believe about Native Americans - the noble savage - the native peoples ......and yet, we find out he took those pictures in the 1930's; posed people chosen for their interesting faces and dressed them for effect - often in clothes not related to their tribal history. So it's all a crock - or is it?

Untidily interspersed in the story of Edward Curtis, the photographer, who was real - is a modern story of the writer. The only part of that story I enjoyed was the difficulty of driving in Los Angeles for people who don't know the city well.

Well, I told you, it was a strange book.

I don't think I'll ever look at photos of Native Americans again without that little shift in my mind questioning who this really is - and who photographed them.

The Holocaust is like that - it's shifting as we speak. No two people can come at it the same way. I read today that Feminists in Germany claim that their Mothers were also victims of the Jews - Huh? They claim that the Old Testament values (Jewish) of women were the root cause of the Nazis sending German women back to "Kinde, Kirche, and Kuchen". My understanding of the Nazis was that they rejected all religions since they grew out of the Jewish Torah. They had a more pagan "religion" having to do with German legends and Valkyrie. Go figure.

On Being Jewish

In England, from the beginning, I knew I was different and somehow not very acceptable. Oh, I was cute - I had curls and dimples and an outgoing personality but I was Jewish - and I knew that from the get go.

I started school at the age of 4 - my parents had found jobs in Whitchurch, Hampshire - and gently removed me from my English foster family. Once I went to school, the differentiation became more pronounced. The kids teased me - but kids do that everywhere and for any reason - or for no reason. But I was sent from the room during prayers - I got to stay out in the hall with the gypsies. And, with the gypsies, I had my hair carefully examined for lice.

I'm pretty sure the principal didn't like me or Jews very much - she used a metal comb to section and search my scalp and at times I thought she'd draw blood with it.

I must say I was a pretty bright little thing and sociable. My Mother was very upset with me because I didn't cry for her or cling to her as she left me my first day in school. She'd bring that up for years. But I was happy to be with other children and doing interesting things. I had a hard time keeping my mouth shut in class and was forever getting into trouble about talking too much - not much has changed.

My Mother , the eternal looker out for my interests, signed me up for a theatrical/dance group
and for years I performed plays based on fairy tales - usually playing the boy's roles - even before I learned to read. Usually someone walked me through my role and told me the words I had to say and I learned them that way.

I also learned basic ballet and dance - which I love to this day. And I think I had no fear of performing - then - because I ended up with good roles in the plays and in prominent positions in the dance.

I do remember learning to read though - the process was that we learned the sound of the letters and then had to stand in front of the room and sound out the words. I had no clue what the process was or the goal for that matter. It was just something teachers did.

So, one day, I was in front of the room, sounding out my letters when all of a sudden those very same letters floated into words, and the words made sense. I said "Oh, I see." and started reading fairly fluently. The teacher stopped me "What are you doing?" she asked. I responded "I'm reading." She sent me to my seat and I thought I had done something wrong.

When class ended, she told me to stay after. I sat and waited and worried while she left the room and then came back with several other teachers. She then told me to read - and I did. The next day I was moved into the higher grade.

I think the structure of the school was that "when the child is ready" the instructor would move them into the next grade. I slithered through the first 3 levels of school in about 3 months and was soon in a class with much older children. It didn't bother me - unless they bothered me.

My Math skills were not so great as my reading skills. Those numbers never floated into any meaningful patterns that I could discern. So it's a good thing I was stuck in the 6th Form for three years. I couldn't take the national exams until I was 10 so I had to stay there. We left England the summer I was 10, so I never knew if I could have passed those exams or not.

Those exams, as I understand it, decided your future. If you were in a lower percentile you would go to a technical or craft school. If you were higher, you got an academic education and a future.

When we came to the United State, Los Angeles to be specific, I was very insulted that they didn't know how brilliant I was. They just put me in Fifth grade with the other 10 year olds
and processed me from then on according to my age - no matter how smart I was. There wasn't much incentive to excell in that environment.

I got good grades and worked in the office in 6th grade - of course, I took advantage of that special position and looked at my "cum" card and was shocked to see that the teacher had written in that first year in the USA, that I was very mercenary. To this day, I have no idea how she could have come to that conclusion. Nothing that occurred in class, or for that matter on the playground, that had anything to do with money or material acquisitions. Certainly nothing on the level that warranted it appearing on my "cum" card and traveling with me throughout my school experience. I finally decided that that teacher didn't like Jews - the first time in the USA that I applied that label to someone. It stung because I knew that that was what people believed about Jews - I'd had a good dose of that kind of treatment in England, but I was not prepared for it here.

When I say that I had anti-Semitic treatment in England it was hard to really define.

I remember that I was invited to a very posh party at the Manor House at Christmas time.
I was shown off (my parents were not invited, only me) by the adults who called me the "little Jewish girl". Not my name, just the label. I didn't like it. I was in total awe of the house and it's contents. Remember we lived in four rooms (small ones) without water, power or gas. The Manor House had a living room/sitting room bigger than our whole house and it was filled with furniture. Soft sofas, occasional tables, gilt lamps and crystal chandeliers. The Christmas tree reached the sky - and was covered with beautiful decorations and candles. I was very envious.

I didn't like it when people asked to touch my curls and asked "Where are the horns?"
I didn't like waiting in the hall with the gypsies while prayers were said.
I didn't like being called and teased by the name "Jerry" - it was what they called Germans but I wasn't German!
The teachers called me "The Little Polish Girl" which felt even more foreign to me. I suppose it was to try and protect me from anti-German sentiment but it didn't work.

I realized years later, on looking back on England that except for the Sims (my foster family) we were never invited into someone's home - not for parties, not for Sunday dinner and not to play.

The one family where I did play in the time before school started in earnest, I realized that my Mother cleaned house there and I could play with their daughter of the same age while my Mother worked. When school started the daughter, Rosemarie, went to a public (private) school.

That said - I was still happy in England. I didn't mind being on my own a lot. But I did feel like an outsider always. I pretty much roamed the farm and local area unsupervised. I read everything I could get my hands on and loved history - which I saw all around me. From the church "Where G-d has been worshiped for 1000 years" to the silk mill where a child had drowned sometimes in the 18th century.

So my memories of England are overall good.

Spiritual Journey's

I know - it's a turnoff. The first time I walked into an OA meeting and heard the word "G-d" I freaked out and turned off. Only my desperation to get off the dieting cycle and lose weight permanently made me go back. That was about 1972 - and I lasted four years.



At that time the "program" was very rigid - one food plan fits all - and y ou can't speak at meetings or do service unless you had "abstinance" - I fell off the wagon and just couldn't make myself go back for many, many years. They were so punitive.



I finally got tired and scared of all the yo-yo'ing weight - and the fact that each time I gained the weight back, it was higher than the time before. I obsessed over weight and food so that my thoughts were all the time what had I eaten, when would I eat again, how much could I safely eat blah blah blah blah.



So I went back - and I found that the program had grown and changed over the years as had I.

It was kinder, more accepting and, at least here in Santa Rosa, had a more spiritual angle which was not demanding, but supportive.



But, I had to find a Higher Power - that was necessary. In the beginning my Higher Power was the doorknob, (it just couldn't be ME) then the group itself. But later it was necessary for my concepts to grow to match my needs and that was very hard. I did try some Eastern relgions - at least I read about them and went to one or two services . I knew that I could not deal with Christianity or the Moslem faith - I'm really a committed Jew - on levels I can't even explain for someone who distained the actual practices.



But again, needing something, I went to services here in S.R. at various temples and found a place I could call home. It's Reform, but it has it's own perspective and there was a very inclusive attitude. Gays were welcome, mixed marriages were welcome, children of mixed marriages were welcome, I was welcome - with all my questions, debates and frustrations.

Also, I felt kind of isolated here in Santa Rosa. There isn't a large Jewish community as there was in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. So after a short time living here we went to the Jewish Film Festival in San Francisco. Waiting in line, surrounded by my fellow Jews, I felt at home. All the loud talking, ebullient discussion, interupting and simultaneous talking felt like I was in the right place.

At work I was "the only Jew" and many people didn't know quite what to make of me.
My first year at the agency, they told me that they exchanged Christmas ornaments for the holidays so I said "well, forget me - I don't have a Christmas tree." Well, you'd think I tried to kill the Pope they were so dumbfounded.

After a year or so there, my boss came running up to me and said "We've hired another Jew."
Well.....Yayyy. She turned out to be ultra Orthodox and didn't last long here - but, son of a gun, she knew of Morey's family and even some of the gossip in the Orthodox community about them. Small world.

Anyway, we joined the Reform temple as it seemed so warm and welcoming and I've never regretted it. Rabbi George came to the temple about a year later - new out of school and very naive in some ways - but very earnest and searching for ways to make Judaism more present for himself and for the community. He has come a long way as have I. He goes every summer to Israel and is working on his PhD. and it shows in his discussions, classes and Torah study.

So last year I attended a couple of adult Bnai Mitzvahs' and was so touched I decided to do it myself. Silly me, I thought I'd quietly learn what I needed and then do a Saturday service with George and it would be no big deal. But the more I shared with family and friends what my plan was, the more it became a big deal. People expressed the desire, no - they demanded that they be invited. Shelley said she'd come without an invitation!! So I'm touched that so many people (it seems) care about me and my spiritual journey. And, of course, I definitely want my immediate family to share the experience with me.

And I'm still searching - so is George. I feel a deep commitment to the Jewish people, our history, our "culture" and that feeling of "belonging" I get when I'm around them. I feel an obligation to all those died for their faith - or even their lack of it - just for being Jewish. I'm part of a chain that stretches back in time and I regret that I didn't know this about myself earlier.

I find the Torah difficult, misogynist and brutal but another Rabbi at our congregation once said the "The Torah is too important to be taken literally." So we search - all of us at Torah study. What could this possibly mean for modern people? How can we interpret it in a way that is acceptable , even supportive in this time and place. No two people see it the same way - even in our relatively small group - but we are all searching for meaning and connection.

I must admit that the music is a BIG deal for me. I think my Mother must have sung the melodies of prayers all my life because I "know" them...it's like it's genetic or something. I can't really explain it.

As an addendum to "life with Mom", I have to say that there was always music in the house. Even in the years in England. We had a RADIO, which was big deal - and Mom and I knew all the words to all the songs that were the background music of our lives. (I think I've forgotten them all Carol)......but even without the radio, my Mother had grown up with Judaism being a daily event in her life from morning prayers thanking G-d for the return of life and breath to thanking G-d for everything blessing, and asking G-d's help with every hurdle. It was automatic with Mom to say "Thank G-d" or "With G-d's help" or "G-d forbid" with any appropriate statement. She also hummed and sang the prayers she grew up with as the music of her daily life....and subtley mine.

So, yes, the music is very important and I don't like it when the cantorial soloist changes the music or introduces "new" music - but I get used to it.

I'm reading Torah for my Bat Mitzvah (shared with 9 other women) and so I only do a small portion (thankfully - I don't think my aging brain could remember the whole thing like the 13 year olds do). The music of that portion sings in my brain every day - and I hope it will sing for me on THE day. But I enjoy it.

I've told my teacher and George that I don't need or want to "understand" the Hebrew. If I get words, my left brain immediately goes to arguing with the words, analyzing them, taking them apart and derailing me from that "place" I want to go which has no words.

When I took art classes, the teacher was very insistant on doing exercises that kept the left brain busy so that the right brain could express itself in the art. And that is somehow what happens with prayers. The left brain is busy reading - while the music does something else for me.

So that's my journey up to now. I find myself in an amazing and completely unexpected place
spiritually and even if it's "just aging", I'm glad to be here.

Ways and Means Part 2

So, back to Mom.

She arrived in England with 2 suitcases. I believe that she had a friend in Berlin ship a trunk - or something, because we had featherbeds from Germany and Mom's china (some of it that didn't get broken) that was her marriage china. There were some linens and Sabbath candlesticks from my Grandmother - also a Chanukah menorah from my Grandmother.

I doubt that all that was in her suitcases.

My Grandmother had four candlesticks for Shabbat. Two were taller than the others. She gave two to my Aunt Toni and two to my Mother and it was only later that Mom noticed that she had a mismatched pair. Carol got my mismatched pair which I had inherited from Mom. They were brass - not valuable except in emotional attachment.

They were lit every Friday of my young life wherever we were and I remember once they were lit in England and there came a banging at the front door. My Mother quickly hid the lit candles - it was two members of the British police wanting to know if my Father had any contact with his cousin (who seemed to be involved in black marketing). My Father didn't and cursed his cousin for being a stupid troublemaker. But I always remembered the fear of the police (in their long leather coats) and the hiding of the Jewishness of the candles.

So somehow my Mom managed to finagle into our four room cottage on the farm (Manor Farm Cottages, Whitchurch Hants.) a dining table and four chairs; an easy chair for my Father; a treadle sewing machine (more on that later) and a pump organ that lived in the kitchen and was MINE.

The cottage had no electricity, no gas and water came from a well in the foyer (which I was terrified of). Later they put in piped water but it came from a faucet outside and we had to heat it up on a kerosene stove to cook, wash dishes or take baths. There was also a wood stove which heated the whole house - not well as the basin and ewer in my room, from which I performed my morning ablutions, usually froze over.

There was an outhouse in the back of the garden and a bucket in the foyer for emergencies.

Upstairs we had two beds - a chest of drawers for my parents. For me a closet (with no back)
and a stand for the ewer and basin.

Later my Mother acquired a piano for me as she arranged for me to have piano lessons from the only other Jewish couple in town - Auntie Rose and Uncle Walter. They were Viennese and Auntie Rose was quite an accomplished pianist. I was her first pupil.

The kitchen was a room. There was a sink, but water had to be carried in. The cooking was done on a kerosene stove. There was no refrigeration. Milk was delivered by not all the way to the farm - I had to bring it home by picking it up on the way home from school. That was a twice a week event. My Mother fed the garbage to the chickens by boiling it into a mash.

The radio was our major source of information about the outside world and Winston Churchill's voice was a major part of my growing up. My parents hovered over the radio as though their lives depended on it - and in some ways it did. For years a "hobby" of mine was to think of places to hide, just in case. I never really focused on who I had to hide from - I just knew I had to be creative about hiding.

My parents somehow got involved in making jewelry as a hobby (?). They bought sealing wax and some small tools and created floral designs on buttons. My Father converted safety pins to catches and attached them to the back of the buttons. We sold these - somehow - to a lot of people.

Then my Mother made herself a winter coat (using that old treadle sewing machine) from an Army blanket. Soon half the town was lined up at our front door with Army blankets in hand and my Mother made coats for them all. She became the seamstress for the town and I remember before we left she made a wedding dress and all the bridesmaids dresses and WE were invited to the wedding. I still have the photograph of that.

Mom made almost all my clothes out of remnants from these customers and I was sometimes embarrassed when people recognized the clothes I wore as being the same material as their items. It wasn't often, but it happened.

I think Mom was basically very creative - I remember she and my Father poring over patterns trying to figure out what the English instructions meant. I've done some sewing in my time and I speak English well, and have had trouble with the instructions.

My Father worked on the farm. He got all the Sunday assignments because "Jews don' t care about working on Sunday" I don't remember that he got a lot of Saturdays off, but maybe he did. I often went with him to feed the pigs. I sometimes got to drive the cart and horse that we used to get about to the various sites where animals had to be fed.

But it was my Mother who found books for me and especially books about Jewish subjects geared towards children. She had a friend who lived in London. Mrs. Young. Erna Young had been the cook in the household where my Mom worked as a housemaid. They shared a room.
Erna had a son, older than I and I don't know where he lived. Mr. Young - when given the choice, went into the British Army. My Dad chose to work on a farm as he said he couldn't imagine killing fellow Germans.

I think my Mom envied Erna's life because she had it much easier living in London. First of all there were other Jews - but also life was hard for my Mother as she had to do all the household work without the aid of electricity. So Laundry was boiled in a tub over a wood fire, wrung out by hand and hung on lines to dry - or freeze - depending on the weather. Ironing was done by heating two irons on the wood fire stove and changing back and forth between them. Even with all this, my Mother laundered weekly and ironed everything including my pajamas and socks!!

My Mother also tended chickens and rabbits. The rabbits were ostensibly mine, and they were always escaping. I never put two and two together to realize that whenever one of my rabbits escapted we had rabbit stew for dinner. My Mother sometimes sold the eggs from the chickens but mostly we ate them ourselves.

Mom also tended a large vegetable garden where she grew potatoes, carrots, cabbages, brussel sprouts, onions - an anything else she could manage. Where she learned to do all this, I have no idea. She never lived on a farm before England.

Mom also "put up" jams, jellies, sauerkraut and preserved fruits and vegetables by canning.
Her industriousness and hard work were legendary and 30 years later when my foster Father called in the Los Angeles to tell me his wife, my foster Mother, had died he mentioned in the conversation that my Mother could squeeze more out of thruppence than anyone he ever saw.

He also told me that I was speaking English within 6 weeks of coming to his house.

When I was about 6, I remember my Mother telling me that there was just ONE GOD. It made perfect sense to me. Then she taught me the Shma.... She tried to teach me Hebrew but neither of us was disciplined enough to keep it up. But, in her way, Mom taught me about the major Jewish holidays and we celebrated them as best we could.

Ways and Means

I got some criticism for being "dark" and negative in my German posts, but I'm afraid that that is how I feel or felt. Writing about it "lances the boil" and lets the wound I've been carrying heal.
I don't want to be like my Mom, who in her last years suffered from dementia. She often cried about her lost family and blamed herself for "taking her ass in two hands and running" (said in Yiddish).

Mom never or rarely talked about her escape - I never knew she carried so much guilt and I wondered at her absence of pain. Although, she was frantic in 1942 and had the Red Cross searching for her family. I still have the paperwork. She had been very, very close to her Mother and sister, Toni.

Toni was about 10 years older than Mom (who was the youngest of six) and Toni "mothered" Mom more than her Mother did from what she said.

Toni and Mom went every where together except school and, until her Father died, to shul. For some reason my grandfather favored Mom more than his other girls and took her with him every day to the temple. She learned to read Hebrew before Polish - and I don't think she used much Polish. So Yiddish would have been her daily language.

They lived in a "schetl" in Poland called "Nova Sanch". My Polish neighbors tell me it is a lovely little town - a tourist destination. Google tells me that the couple of hundred Jews who lived there were "liquidated" in 1942.

Mom left school around 14 - she had been bullied a lot and, without her sister at her side, felt isolated and lost. She and Toni then did a 2 or 3 years "internship" with a milliner who "fired" them as soon as they completed their time with her.

Mom's older sister, Helen, had "run away from home" and joined the Yiddish theatre. Mom didn't really know her as she was just a little thing when this happened. Helen died in Germany somewhere - in childbirth. No mention of a husband.

At some point my uncles left Poland and went to Germany. They set up a business together.
Uncle Sidney was trained as a tailor so he was the creative energy of the business. Uncle Alfred was the "salesman" - a good talker and a friendly outgoing personality - Mom's favorite brother.
Uncle Heini was the silent type but he was the bookeeper and the paper manager. They seemed to work well together but ended up breaking up at some point with bitterness and recriminations that lasted their whole lives.

My Uncle Alfred ended up in Chile and developed a big clothing business there which I think my cousin, Albert, still runs.

My Mother, Toni and my Grandmother decided that Poland was not where they wanted to stay.
I think there was no work and lots of hostility and their "men" were in Germany and so no protection.

So off they went.

In Germany they lived with one of the brothers - or maybe all of them - for a while. At some Point Uncle Heini married a non-Jew, Wally and they had Wolfgang. Alfred and Erna married on the cusp of their escape out of Germany. I don't know when Sidney married Helen but I'm betting she was part of the reason they all broke up. She could make a lot of trouble out of nothing and was not well accepted into the family. She came from Russia - wealthy at one point and never let anyone forget it.

Mom and Toni traveled about Berlin as a pair and often went to a beer garden to meet Jewish men. My Dad met my Mom there and talked her into dating him "withour your sister along".
It was a family joke for years, but not to Toni. When Mom married Dad she wouldn't talk to Mom for a year - after all, she was the older sister and was supposed to marry first but Mom was already 27 and Toni would have been 37 so how long could they wait?

Dad helped Mom get "legal" in Germany. I guess he was a kid of the streets and knew all kinds of ways to get things done. Mom talked of going to some house in another district and spending the night there and then, in the morning filling out some paperwork and Viola - she was German.

When Mom and I were getting ready to leave Germany in 1939 - my Grandmother and Toni and Toni's husband, Selig (who always seemed to "just arrive" in the story) decided to go back to Poland and I think they went to Tarnow. Google will tell you the same story - in 1942 all the Jews there were '"liquidated".

Sorry to be so "down", Carol, but that's the story - and we'll never know exactly how my Polish family died.

What I had intended to write about was my Mom's incredible ability to find and acquire things.
I wish I could remember the name the military gave to guys like that but, if you needed something, Mom could find it - even in the darkest rural corner of England.

Next "post" - I promise.

Where did all my energy go?

I've got Dahlia here today. She's 22 months old and go go go. Martin and Kelly are celebrating his birthday by going to see "Alice in Wonderland". We took Dahlia to the park - but she wasn't interested in feeding the ducks. She wanted to swing - then we hiked downhill to the play area which is a little too old for her but she tried different things in her own way - the slides worked the best. Morey took her on the merry-go-round and she was a trouper. She was so enamoured of the lights and mirrors she never got scared.

We came home and she fell asleep in the car but we made the mistake of trying to take her out when we got home. Then she was fully awake and off to the races. She ate a little something on the run - even lay down in the crib for 30 seconds. She insisted on having a pillow and very selectively chose the Disney Princesses blanket but she did want to sleep or even lie down.

The backyard beckoned with all it's mysteries and unknown quantities. She's never really been here to explore - and certainly not since she's older.

I love to hear her chatter. She tells MOrey "Bless you" whenever he sneezes - which is often.
She asks to use the potty and actually did something in it once. She's all over, trying everything and exploring every nook and cranny.

She's so beautiful she attracts attention wherever she goes. It's fun having such beautiful grandchildren.

But I miss my energy. I used to bounce around with them, chase them up and down the hall, dangle them on my knees or bounce them on my back as I played elephant. Now I just drag myself around and hope I can keep an eye on her so she doesn't get into trouble.

One of the aging issues I face, and my friends talk about it too is that we were once energetic and active and now are old - in spite of the fact that we never planned on it. It just happens.
One day you wake up and there are wrinkles, sagging butts, grey hair and short memories. Why is that a surprise? I'm a nurse - I've seen lots of aging and aged people. I just never thought I'd be one of them. Duh! There's a big gap between knowledge and experience.

Well, got to stop rambling - I promised Dahlia Colored pencils oy vey.

When will I learn

It is not a good idea to read intense literature just before bed. Not when you are inclined to insomnia.

I have been reading a dense history of the Holocaust - 600 pages or so - called The Years of Extermination 1938-1944. Since these were the years my family and I escaped from Berlin and went to England, I was very interested and I admit, that belatedly, I'm reading a lot of Holocaust materials.

For most of my life, it's been like that proverbial elephant in the room and I couldn't deal with it
but now I'm obsessed with it. I'm hoping that it's cathartic.

Tonight however, I got totally upset with the endless reiterations of anti-Semitic crap and endless pages with numbers in the hundreds of thousands of people carted of crammed into trains to "disposal" centers (terrible euphemisms for murder places). Shot, starved, experimented on, worked to death, beaten, gassed - young, old, ill, pregnant, women, men, children under 10, over 10 they could work; rich, poor, intelligent, stupid, religious, secular...........no difference. Babies with their heads bashed against walls.

I had nightmares of being chased in a forest when the children were small. Desperately trying to carry them to safety and runnin and running...............................

And a whole country in thralldom to a madman - and not knowing it - believing everything he said - and if not believing being too frightened to resist. A frail, said little tale once in a while of someone who reached out to help a Jew and was him or herself arrested and carted off to Bergen-Belsen, Buchanvald, Dachau, Sobidor, Auschwitz, and the names go on and on.
The neighbors complaining about the smoke of the burning Jews - even as they buy the shoes no longer needed by their former neighbors.

Country after country spilling their Jews into the hands of the Germans - France, Belgium, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland = some resisted for a while, dragged their feet- helped hide a few - provided visas for a few - but most sent them off to their death willingly, joyfully, glad to help themselves, to the homes, the clothes, the jewelry and household possessions. No shame, no guilt, no blood on their hands - they were just Jews.

And I'm angry at the Jews - so self deluding, in denial that this could be happening, unable to organize to fight back even if it's a lost cause. Unable even to agree upon a plan. Arguing even as they are carted off to die. So few places where they rose up and gave as good as they got.

I understand because even as I read I feel a total disbelief in the pure evil that befell my people.
That in modern times, in a civilized country with music, literature, poetry - this was not Uganda!

Were we so obedient - or so used to being abused and disposessed that we thought "Oh sh-t it's happening again."

Who could believe and be prepared for the smooth, efficient, scientific factory like eradication of 6 million people. 6,000,000 people - more if you include Gypsies and gays - and P oles -and
Serbs and Slav - people who did not fit the Aryan image.

And did you know Hitler had a Jewish grandparent within the numbers that would have labeled him Jewish, if he hadn't been the labeler

It boggles the mind - and this is the country I'm going to visit in June. Last time I was in Germany in the 1980's sometime, I sat on a train waiting to leave - reading a book so I was shocked when a man in uniform barked "AUSWEIS" at me. Even as I gathered he was a ticket taker - my body went into shock. I think I turned white. I know I almost wet my pants. The fear was right there. He did, in all honestly, see my distress and backed off, switched in English and made clear it was just tickets he wanted. But............in my genes, I knew he'd come to kill me at last.

How did we escape those death trains? I wish my parents were alive to ask these questions. When so many died, how did we live - and why?

I look at my grandchildren now and I know there'd be no mercy. There were cute babies then
and they were treated like vermin. The one that haunts me is the Town where the Germans came in and killed of all the adults. For some reason they saved 90 children under 5. 90 children under five were locked in a barn with no food, no water, no blankets, no adults.

The chaplains came and saw what was happening and complained to the Hauptleutenant.
After some discussion over a couple of days they sent the soldiers in to kill the children.
One officer had found a little fair haired girl who trusted Daddy like figures and she held onto him - he gently escorted to the shooting area and watched while she was shot.

Are these human beings? Do these people have a soul? And where were the voices of the religious leaders? Lutherans, Protestants, Catholics - - none saw any incongruity with their expressed faith and what they were engaged in.

I'll never find what I'm looking for which is an answer - How could a whole country do and stay sane- or become sane. I'll never forget the postcard a young soldier sent home to his girlfriend
to show what a hero he was - he posed lining up his rifle at a Jewish woman frantically trying to protect her baby = what a hero.

Ok, more cheeful next time.

The Hand of Fate

What a portentous title. But it's true, you know.

I've been reading again - about the Holocaust. Such casual words - 10,000 were picked up here and taken to _________. 85 survived the war. 14,000 were caught up in the net and taken to__________ . They were shot and shoved into open trenches - that they had had to dig first.
Oh yes, their clothes and possession were taken from them first - sometimes their fillings were dug out before they were shot sometimes after. They might not be dead yet when pushed into the trench, but the trenches were filled in anyway.

How close we came to that. A mere 6 weeks before the war started we ended up in England.

My Grandmother, my Aunt Toni and Uncle Selig had gone back to Poland thinking it was better than Germany for them. That's where they had started, with my Mom. Germany looked like a bright and wonderful future for them back then but now - in 1938 or 1939 (I don't know when)
Poland seemed like a safe haven.

Letters went back and forth as the family tried to stay connected. My Mother was very close with her older sister. She, my Mother, was the youngest of six children and her Father had died when she was 14. After 1942, we never heard from them again. The Red Cross could not find any documentation of their end. Shooting groups of Jews in Poland and pushing them into open graves - or leaving their bodies strewn around the streets and ghettos of Poland leaves no record.

My Mother's three brothers escaped. Uncle Sidney, the oldest, and his wife Aunt Helen (and she is another story entirely) left Germany in 1938 (I'm not sure of these dates but close enough).
My uncle had been picked up by the SS and taken to a concentration camp but in those days the camps had not become the killing fields they were later. My Aunt, in her inimitable way, went to the camp commander and begged, pleaded, cried, demanded - whatever - and he gave them 24 hours to get out of the country.

My Aunt had done the same thing for her Father in Russia when the Red Army arrested him. She was just a teenager then, but it worked. She, her sister and her Father had to leave in a hurry and they took the Trans Siberian Railway, ended up in Japan. From there they went to France and then Germany. Poor thing - from the frying pan into the fire.

Aunt Helen and Uncle Sid ended up in Brazil for 3 years - living somehow by him peddling stuff in the back country and jungles. Literally carrying a pack on his back. Somehow they made it to the USA - I never knew how they did it but they were legal and, after the war, sponsored my Mother, Father and myself to come to the United States.

My Mother's other two brothers, married and one with a little boy ran to Italy. My one uncle - Heini - was married to a non-Jew (Wally) but the handwriting was on the wall, the non-Jewish spouse was a ticket to survival but not for long and their son a "mischling" (mixture or mongrel) would not be excluded from their fate.

Italy turned out not to be such a good place for them either and they kept going. South America became their home, eventually Santiago, Chile. There they made a good life for themselves.
Uncle Albert and Aunt Erna had five children - four boys and the youngest a girl. Throughout my young life my Mother would show me pictures of my cousins and name them for me - like a nursery rhyme so that I knew I had family and felt attached to them. Norbetito, Leotito, Juanito and Albertito. Clarita was born about the time we came to the United States - 1947.

Uncle Heini and Aunt Wally had Wolfgang, born in Germany - and later Jaime. They opened a pharmacy and, as far as I know, Wolfgang still runs it in Santiago.

My Father's family was less lucky. I only recently (2009) found out that his brother Jussel, sister-in-law
Rosie and little boy, Sigfried were taken to Auschwitz in 1942. Rosie and Sigfried were killed immediately and Uncle Jussel lasted until 1944. His suffering must have been awful. Sigfried was a little older than me - 6 or so when he died.

I'm going to be Bat Mitzvah this summer and I'm naming Sigfried to share in my Bat Mitzvah - the opportunity he never had.

My Father's other brother, Gunther and his non-Jewish wife - Gretel - managed to get to Spain and lived in Barcelona until after the war. They had one daughter, Annemarie - who was raised Christian. After the war they went to Caracas, Venezuela.

I've lost track of Annemarie and her family (3 sons) after our parents died. She would write me a letter in Spanish, which her Mother would translate into German. Then my Mother would translate the German for me into English.

When they came to visit us in Los Angeles - about 1968 or 69 - we spoke in our broken German.
She and I look like sisters. But she is gone from my life now - I tried to trace her but to no avail.

My Father's Mother - my Grandmother Bertha - died in 1938. She was diabetic and got a gangrenous thumb. She died in surgery - which my Mother always said was murder by the Nazis. After all my reading, I'm inclined to believe her. Even in 1938 that should not have been a serious operation with such a fatal outcome.

After the war - when we came to the United States - my Father found somehow his first cousin
Maria Tannenburg and her son Horst. They had survived the camps and now lived in Skokie, Illinois. They visited us a couple of times - never talked about the camps. Horst is clearly a damaged person. A few times I tried to find out about my Father's family from him but he always says "I was just a teenage boy. I didn't pay much attention to the family connections.
But your Mother was so beautiful. You know I was at her wedding and I had a crush on her."

I tried writing to Horst and got pretty much the same few words every time. He did mention my Aunt Rosie and Sigfried and until he told me I had not known their names. My Mother - the person who connected me to family - focused on HER family. Horst also told me that my grandmother Bertha was one of 12 children - all married and with children - some of whom were old enough to have another generation of children. He told me that all were gone - only one uncle who got to Israel survived and, by the time, I got that story from Horst, that uncle had died too.

I figure that there must have been at least 60 people in my Father's family who never made it out.

Horst and I exchange New Year's cards - or actually his wife, Margo and I exchange New Year's cards. Very little information on them. They have one daughter who I met years ago. She wants nothing to do with the whole subject of Judaism, the war or for that matter, family. She made that clear.

So my Father and Mother grew up in the arms of a large, probably contentious family. There was one Uncle in my Father's family who was the Patriach and he decided that my Father wasn't smart enough for an advanced education and arranged for him to be trained as a plumber.
I know my Father was resentful - he had a speech defect which made his Uncle think he wasn't smart. But that trade was our ticket out of Germany.

This Uncle of my Father's did not want my Father to marry a Polish Jew. The German Jews felt very superior to them. The Polish Jews were thought of as being backward and dirty. He (my Father's Uncle) always checked my Mother's housekeeping when he came to visit and my Mother was very proud that he never found anything to complain about.

My Grandfather on my Father's side - Sigfried - was a soldier in the German army in World War I - he died from his wounds after the war - when my Father was 14. His widow raised the three boys - with the help of the family - but essentially alone. My Mother always said that those boys ran wild. My Father, Kurt, talked about the post war years with great bitterness as Germany was in an economic slump and there was high inflation. Survival was a struggle and he resented England and France for what they imposed on Germany which
ultimately led to the rise of Hitler.

I did not really know my Father. He left when I was one - we were reunited when I was 4 and I know he looked at me with bewilderment and alienation. I was English. I spoke English only. His English was pretty bad. I understood German but was not allowed to speak it. He tried to teach me songs in German and to give me a sense of "being German" but it was ashes in his mouth, I could tell. He tended to be dour and depressed but also a tease at times. I think he was a fun person before the war. He teased my Aunt Helen - with her airs and graces - by emphasizing his "peasant" status. He died when I was 14. Again that number 14.

So the life I was born into and the life I had were so entirely different. I felt English. I loved England. I did not want to leave England. And one day many years later, I realized I did not have one cell, not one gene that was English. I felt heartbroken.