End of February

Today the sun was shining but it was seriously cold.

Spring is just around the corner.  Dr Anne is looking forward to warmth, light nights, sunshine.

The Physic Garden

Czerkawska, C. (2014). The Physic Garden. Scotland: Saraband.

Greygranite gave Dr Anne The Physic Garden as a birthday present.  What a wonderful read.  

Dr Anne Is not into historical novels.  Queen Elizabeth, Henry V111 and Cromwell are nowhere on her reading list.  Nineteenth and twentieth century history is within the lives of people she knows about.  She can visualise her relatives coming east at the clearances or heading down to Glasgow.  She knows their history, their way of life, their aspirations, their legacy.

This book about William Lang, the college gardener strikes a chord with the places that she goes to in her head on 'blue' days.

Dr Anne is of the view:

'What is before you definitely doesn't go past you.'

'One also needs to be out and about, breathing the fresh air. One mustn't live life second hand.'

She awards 9/10.

Spring is just around the corner

Dr Anne went for a walk in the garden garden today.  The snowdrops are in full flower now.  The first crocuses are coming into flower.  There is one camellia in flower.   

How Dr Anne looks forward to Spring.

Some of the snowdrop display.

The first crocus.

The camellia is peeping round the 'rusty' tie back.

On the other side: Letters to my children from Germany 1940 - 1946

Wolff- Mönckeberg, M. (2011). On the other side: Letters to my children from Germany 1940-1946. London: Persephone Books Ltd.

This seemed the appropriate book to read this week following the programmes about the 70th anniversary of Auschwitz.  

This diary was written by a mother whose children lived abroad during the war in Britain, America, Sweden and South America while she was in and around Hamburg.  It was her way of telling them about the daily grind of the people during the war years.  The diary was found after she died.

This was an enthralling read and compares to the scenarios of the Auschwitz programme.  In the end it comes to survival.  Maslow's Basic Needs... Food, water, shelter, clothing... Security... Love... Some folk just can't cope.  What does one need to survive?

Dr Anne awards a 9/10 for this read.  

Auschwitz, 70 years on.

Dr Anne visited Auschwitz in the autumn of 2014. A few nights ago, there was an amazing commemoration from Auschwitz.  

The programme took an Austrian Jew from Auschwitz Birkenau who went to Israel.  She was troubled. She passed the troubles to her son. Her way of coming to terms with her issues was as a poet.   

A Warsaw Jew from Auschwitz had that 'something' other people don't have. He focused on the 'sparks' when in the camp and lived the routine.  His mum was in the woman's section and they used to shout to each other over the barbed wire. They met up after release and went to Israel together then America.  He remembered his dad who died in the Warsaw Ghetto and achieved for him.   

There was a gypsy who was in the camp with his parents.  The gypsies were put in huts as families, allowed to write to their families about how good it was for propaganda then divided up and exterminated.  This guy was troubled.  He had a dream that a woman with long white nails sat on his chest stabbing him. 

Dr Anne was pleased to see they interviewed a non Jew.  It was about a young Polish non Jew who was taken to the Auschwitz Camp. He was taken to house 11and tried as someone who helped others escape.  He somehow escaped death.  A German guard spoke to him as he went to work in the factory saying telling him who much he hated the things that were being done to young folk. That was enough to give him his Damascus moment.  He went to uni in Krackow to train as a Doctor. He wouldn't become a member of the Communist part post war so he was put into the army in the north of Poland away from his wife and child. After 6 years he returned to Krackow to practice as a GP.  His house and surgery was close to Auschvitz.  His face showed the peace that passes all understanding.  

Having been there each scenario meant something very special.