I always wanted to know exactly how my father had managed to escape from Nazi-occupied Poland and survive the Holocaust that killed almost his entire family.
Palace of Justice, Nuremberg, 20th November 1945
Like so many other refugees trying to build a new life in a foreign land, he didn’t want to talk about the past he’d lost for ever. When my father reached his early seventies, though, he seemed more willing to open up. Thinking he’d find it easier to talk to a stranger, I arranged for a fellow journalist to interview him. There seemed no particular hurry. And then my father suddenly died. Even though I used to carry a BBC tape recorder on my shoulder for a living, I found I didn’t even have a recording of his voice—let alone an account of his life.