Diary of My Past

A Holocaust survivor, Henry spent about twenty years writing his story. Born in 1934 in Vienna, he was the youngest—by several years—of four children of a prominent and successful wine distributor. In his manuscript, he described with remarkable detail his life in an upper-middle-class family, enjoying childhood games, reading, and playing with friends. But after the Nazis arrived, life changed drastically, and the family ultimately scattered to find safety. Henry’s father secured him a ticket for the Kindertransport to England with no expectation the family would ever be reunited. Looking back, Henry often says he lived multiple lives—at a farm school in Scotland, in the British Army, at the London School of Economics, in Israel, and ultimately in America. He describes experiences and people with skillful prose that is at times heartbreaking and tragic but often delightfully funny. He hired me to work with him to edit the manuscript, and we had many enjoyable, and sometimes difficult, discussions. Satisfied he had dealt with his memories, he chose to preserve the manuscript in digital files and a set of notebooks for his daughter and grandchildren.