When Naomi Lewis was a child, no one in her family talked about the fact that her grandfather had escaped the Nazi-occupied Europe, largely by foot and through the kindness of strangers. In fact, no one spoke much about that part of their family history, at all.
When Lewis tried to ask questions, her mother dissuaded her.
鈥淒on鈥檛 bring it up,鈥� she told her. 鈥淗e doesn鈥檛 like to talk about it.鈥�
When Lewis asked why, her mother answered, 鈥淏ecause when he went back, after the war, his mother was gone. The Germans had killed her.鈥�
After her grandfather鈥檚 death, when her parents were moving her grandmother into an assisted living facility, they found a yellowed, type-written document: 30 foolscap pages in Dutch, and 30 pages translated into English. It recounted her grandfather鈥檚 escaped from German-occupied Europe and into southern France.
She asked her mother what they should do with it, but Lewis explains, 鈥淎ll her life, Mum had know, this was the box you didn鈥檛 open,鈥�
Lewis鈥檚 grandmother was still living, and said she remembered the journal well, had even translated it herself. 鈥淏ut who knows,鈥� Lewis鈥檚 mother said. Her grandmother was in the stages of dementia in which 鈥渟he rearranged every story around herself as the centre.鈥�
鈥淪he could not have borne the version in which this document sat at the bottom of a box through her entire marriage, without her knowledge,鈥� said Lewis.
Lewis, an award-winning short story writer and novelist now living in 琉璃神社, transcribed her grandfather鈥檚 journal and, as she did, his voice returned to her, along with hints of his humour. Later, she traced her grandfather鈥檚 route, traveling along from Amsterdam to Lyon, discovering family secrets along the way.
The resulting memoir, Tiny Lights for Travellers, asks tough questions about identity as a secular Jew, the accuracy of family stories, and the impact of the Holocaust on subsequent generations.
Lewis will read from her memoir and speak about her experiences retracing her grandfather鈥檚 steps at the Greater Vernon Museum and Archives Thursday, Nov. 14 from, 7-8:30 p.m. As well, the museum will feature a reading from the letters of former mayor of Vernon, Stewart Fleming, written when he was a pilot and eventual prisoner of war in WW2.
If you have any of your own family鈥檚 wartime correspondence, please bring to share. Open to the public, all ages, admission is free. For more information call 250-550-3140.
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