Dear Organizers of Auschwitz-Birkenau Tours,I’m writing to you as someone who, several decades ago, visited Auschwitz for the first time and had an experience that profoundly shaped my understanding of history. I have been back several times since then, but that first visit is what left the deepest impression on me. The silence, the sombre [...]
My would-be father was murdered at the age of thirty. Peter Donald Fox, British journalist, shot dead on the beautiful island of Cyprus, the place where the goddess of love was born. But the terrorist who killed Peter was full of hate, not love. I don’t know what kind of gun he used, because the [...]
I haven’t seen the recently released series of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, but I did read the book when it was first published. So let me be clear from the outset: this blog post is about the book, not the series. The trouble is, how can anyone dare to criticise a novel which is based [...]
Way back in 1980, Prince Charles and Lady Diana were interviewed on the occasion of their engagement. When the naïve TV reporter asked them ‘Are you in love?’ blushing Lady Di mumbled, ‘Of course,’ and plum-in-the-mouth Charles muttered, ‘Whatever love is’. The cad! everyone thought at the time, my mother included. But hang on a [...]
Before going any further, how about this quote to make you sit up and reflect. 'How easy it was to drift through an unchosen life, in a succession of reactions to events.' So, did it make you sit up and reflect? If not, then perhaps Ian McEwan’s latest novel, Lessons, will not be your cup [...]
‘Nearly everything that happens to you in life you forget. Should have kept a journal.’ I came across those words while reading Ian McEwan’s latest novel, ‘Lessons’, and they lifted my mid-winter spirits astronomically. Why? Because keeping a journal is at least one New Year’s Resolution I don’t have to worry about, seeing as I’ve [...]
‘Wow, you all looked so glamorous back then!’ my daughter said to me the other day, with more than a touch of envy. We were browsing through a selection of old photo albums from the late 1980s and early 1990s, and happened to stop at one particularly fetching snapshot: the one I ended up selecting [...]
