Ann Frank and Zoe

I have a wee scruff of a girl who means much to me who I lived with and helped bring up for 18 years or more now. She was a well traveled little earwig and followed me around through life's peculiar twists and turns. She can be a "pickle" as all kids can, but she has a good heart and would do no one harm and so in many ways it wasnt too surprising that when she got to about 12/13 she would be attracted to the story of Ann Frank. As a tool for teaching the history of those dark days Anns Story fitted in well in showing just how inhuman mankind can be to a young girl of approximately the same age.

Naturally when we visited Amsterdam a  trip to the house put into sharper focus the book on Ann that Zoe had read and got Zoe madly against all National Socialists and she is now a firm Labor supporter.

However, what really nailed it was on one very cold winter day on a long journey to Hamburg with my then partner driving all the way. As we drove up the Autobahn I suddenly remembered where we were and my mind shot back 40 years to a eight year old boy sat in the back of his Dad's Mercedes Benz in exactly the same spot. My father had pulled off the Autobahn and coasted to a halt in a place called Bergen Belsen, he got out the car and motioned me to follow him. There was little to see. Just mounds of earth and a bit of a memorial.. Then he showed me the sign on one of the mounds.

It said "Here lies 5000 dead" but still the mounds made no sense to me. i did not know that my Father had been here in 1945 and of course his face brooked no comment from me. Plus, I was in a world of confusion of my own. At the time we were going to Hamburg and a family I would know for many years. My father had met them at the end of the war and helped them to marry and set up a house in the chaos and ruins of Hamburg, one of the worst bombed places on earth. The people my Father helped were Charlie and Anne-Marie who had kids of the same age as me and with whom I would grow up for the next however long it has been. That time at Belsen I could not put together the massive crime with the Germans I knew, were they all NAZI's? and what had happened to all these dead people had Germans killed them and look at all those mounds. It was too big for my mind to comprehend. It would take me many years to put it all together.

However, scan it forward to Zoe sitting in the back of our car speeding passed the silver birche and pine tree forest that surrounds that ghastly place. I noticed she was peering into the Forest and said "Watch for the next exit sign Zoz" she did and suddenly a look of horror came on her face, it said "Bergen Belsen". I said "you know where we are?" she nodded and said "OMG" I then said "Youve now been where Ann Frank's journey started and ended". We did not stop we did not have to. TV and movies had filled in the gaps for Zoe. As I said they are much more wordly wise than I was  at their age". But later she said to me "How could the Germans do that" and I replied with the same reply my father had given me"You could recruit a division of SS in Birmingham or London Zoe. Its the nature of man not the nationality". And so it goes on.... and on..! Charlie and Anne-Marie ensured Zoe got the rest of the message simply by being what they both were to me. Nice people with a lot of love.

Why do I write this? Well, it was Charlies birthday on Thursday.. Sadly he died a few years back.. I miss him very much.. He was actually my best friend over many years, taught me much of the nature of life and was a very wise man.

Zoe, to my great pride and joy is training to be a Nurse.

Ann Frank.. Well to me she stands for all the children of the world who fall foul of what evil people do. Unfortunately I have seen too much of what evil people do and the effect on children and he innocent. But thats another story. Lets leave it here; in 1945 about a mile from where Ann Frank had so recently died a couple of British Military Policemen and a British Army Major were sworn to secrecy as to the location they had just buried Heinrich Himmler head of the SS. I guess that is some kind of justice. But not much.