Historyworks

Hope is in the eyes of love Hope is in the smiles we see Hope is in the trees that grow Hope is in the heart of me

For years we knew nothing. All we knew was that they had disappeared. We knew there were places where they could have gone, where they might have disappeared. ...

A ship in a bottle sails down the mantlepiece. A ship in a photo  brings Granma here. Ships they talk and talk about.  Ships far and near. How did the ship  get in the bottle? Ships by night and by day.  Ships they talk and talk about. Why did Granma come to stay?  Who put the ship in the bottle? Ships that they once knew.  Ships they talk and talk about.  Why didn’t Grandad come too? When did the...

For years I tried to find out what happened to my father’s uncles.  All I had were scraps, words, names,  floating in front of me like leaves  falling off trees: Oscar,Martin,Metz, route de Thionville, Dentist, clockmender… One day, my cousin in America wrote:  a distant relative had died. In his papers there were two letters from one of the uncles, Oscar,  and two letters from his sister in Polan...

Some of you know nothing.  From you there is nothing. Some of you know something.  From you there is nothing. Some of you know a lot.  From you there is nothing. You can’t speak of it.  It is the unspeakable. You can’t say it. It is the unsayable. You can’t say what you know.  It is the unknowable.

He doesn't speak English, miss. He comes from the Congo, miss. I translate for you, miss. He says that the bad men take his grandfather, miss. He says that the bad men take his grandmother, miss. He says that the bad men take his dad, miss. He says that the bad men take his mum, miss. He doesn't say how he got here, miss. He can't say how he got here, miss. ....

Everyone comes from somewhere. Everyone has a past. Everyone is somewhere first. Everyone is somewhere last.   Deep in the heart of buildings  scattered about online  packed away in boxes hiding in cupboards are fragments and hints  about your life and mine. You catch a glimpse of your name,  you might suddenly see an address,  sometimes it’s typed, because your name was recorded by an official; ...

Some of you know nothing. From you there is nothing. Some of you know something. From you there is nothing.

In the evening, after we’ve eaten,  Mum tells about the War. “Doodlebugs,” she says,  “were bombs that came flying over us –  rockets, they were, and they made a noise, but when the noise stopped you knew that it was about to drop.  They said you had to run for cover.  If you were out, they said, the best place to go was in the gutter,  lie down in the gutter. Once, when I had just come out  of Wh...

My father came to England  from another country. My father’s mother came to England  from another country but my father’s father  stayed behind. So my dad had no dad here  and I never saw him at all. One day in spring  some things arrived: a few old papers,  a few old photos  and – oh yes – a hulky bulky thick checked jacket  that belonged to the man I would have called “Grandad”.  The Man Who Sta...

My dad was in Berlin in 1946  and his old friend David said that a friend of his was at the Berlin Natural History Museum.  David wondered if he was still there. At the time Berlin was under a foot of snow,  the roads were covered with snow, there was scarcely anything going along them.  You could scarcely see where the roads went. My dad says he walked for hours  through heaps of bomb rubble and...

Late at night, I’m groping through the internet, and I find that my father’s uncle Oscar  fought in the First World War in the Kaiserlich und Königlich * Infantry Regiment 56. It’s a Polish regiment who fight  alongside the German Army in the Austro-Hungarian Army. Another night, I find that my father’s uncle Martin  fought in the First World War, in the Deuxième Régiment Étranger. * It’s a French...

Once upon a time I was in a story  where I met an invisible thing who said that I could have one wish  and I said that my wish was that I could go back to the place and time I miss the most and the invisible thing said that I could.  But: though I could go back to the place  could never go back to that time. Then I pleaded with the invisible thing  and said, "Please can it be both, the place and t...

Every now and then  my father would say, “I had two French uncles. They were in France at the beginning of the war.  They weren’t there at the end.” “What happened to them?” we’d say.  “Don’t know,” he’d say. “All I know is that they were there  at the beginning of the war, and they weren’t there at the end.”

There was a wedding, and we were invited and, when we got there, there was a man who they said was my father's cousin.     This is Michael, they said – same name as you, hah ! And at one point in the  wedding, my aunt took  me to one side and said  that there was a time  during the war when  Michael was a boy, six,teen or seventeen no older than you are now,  she said, and his parents  said to him...

We say, "Never again." But when people with power are pointing in one direction when many minds are pointing in that direction when the guns and bombs are pointing in that direction  too, it can happen again. It does happen again. It can be furious and chaotic.  It can be calm and orderly. It can start with laws. It can start without them. The people who do it  can believe they are saving their co...

Water slips through my hands, falling and falling away. It twists and turns and slides, it can't stop or stay.   Pictures in my mind of you,  they slip and fall away. Twisting and turning and sliding,  till they are gone too. There’s water in the river.  There’s water in the sea. I reach out to touch it.  The water touches me. Water slips through my hands,  falling and falling away. It twists and...

I come from when houses were ruined,  the skies had stopped exploding, my father in Germany meeting the skeleton of a dinosaur in the snow in the wrecked Berlin Natural History Museum,  my mother holding on to my brother, having just lost a living, walking, just-talking toddler to a never-ending cough, my parents who grew up when you could buy a live chicken in Hessel Street, my father sharing his...

When they do war, they forget how to count.  They forget how to count,  and that’s how they do it. They come,  they kill;  they kill,  they go. No numbers.  No names. They disappear them.  They vanish them. That’s how they do it. They come,  they kill;  they kill,  they go. And it’s  “worth it”,  they say. “It’s worth it, believe us.”  if you forget how to count.  If you forget the numbers.  If yo...

Oscar and Rachel, you escaped from where they pinned a yellow star on you. You escaped from where  they took all you had. You escaped from where  they made you put a sign  on your market stall,  saying “Jewish business”. Oscar and Rachel,  you heard it was safe in the great resort of Nice  on the other side of France,  because the Italians in Nice were refusing to send Jews like you  away on train...

I read an article about the train that took my great-uncle and my great-aunt Jeschie and Rachel to Auschwitz: Convoy 62. The article said that some of the prisoners on Convoy 62 escaped from the train while it was in a tunnel One of the prisoners was called  Oscar Handschuh and when he jumped from the train  he knocked himself out. After a bit, he came round and headed off  into the countryside. H...

In the early hours of January 31, 1944,  four French policemen knocked on the door of Madame Bobières in the village of Sainte-Hermine in the Vendée. Later the policeman in charge  wrote a report explaining  what happened next: “Martin Rozen opened the door.”  He was, the report said, “… born on 18 August 1890  at Krosniewice in Poland. Jeweller, son of Jonas and Rachel,  naturalised French, Jewis...

I look at the names of the police who knocked on the door of my father's uncle in the middle of the night  and arrested Martin. Here they are: Eugène Cabanetos, Arnand Mazouin, Georges Salomon, and their officer in charge, Pierre Le Papu. Is it their fault? They were ordered to arrest him by Gaston Jammet , the Sub-Prefect,  who was following the orders of Louis Bourgain , the Prefect. Louis Bourg...