Should I mention that I saw Anne Frank in Belsen? Do you think they’d be interested in that?
When my mother was asked to share her experiences as a German refugee and Dutch Jew in the Second World War, she hesitated. She didn’t want to bore people with her story. However, as time went on, the interest in her narrative grew. She started giving regular lectures in schools, met with the prime minister, and even appeared in a BBC documentary. She became a storyteller, forever sharing her tale.
Curiously, my father never had the opportunity to tell his story. No one ever asked. Yet, he was a victim of one of the war’s greatest crimes. Stalin’s genocide of the Polish nation. A crime that saw countless people expelled from their homes, forced into slave labor, or imprisoned in horrendous conditions. Sadly, this story remains untold and unknown to most.
Decades later, we are still living with the consequences of this hidden history.
In 1938, my grandparents, Dolu and Lusia Finkelstein, moved into a stunning contemporary house in Lwów, then part of Poland. The house symbolized their wealth, progressive spirit, and hope for the future. They expected their son, Ludwik, to inherit the family business and carry on their legacy. But Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin had other plans. Their actions, as outlined in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, destroyed everything.
Years later, when my nephew Simon visited the place of my father’s birth for a television documentary, he discovered the grim fate of the Jews of Lwów. The narrative, however, was silent about what happened to my own father, leaving a void in the accounts of that time. The truth, as my father’s video testimony and a collection of letters revealed, was that after the Soviet invasion, my family lost everything. The Finkelstein business was nationalized, they were evicted from their home, and my grandfather was unjustly arrested and sent to the Gulag. The nightmare didn’t end there, as my 10-year-old father and his mother were also arrested and deported to Soviet Ukraine, along with other families of civic leaders.
Surviving the arduous journey, my father and grandmother faced a bitter winter in inhumane conditions. However, when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact collapsed, a glimmer of hope appeared. Stalin reluctantly agreed to an amnesty for the imprisoned Poles. Reunited with his family through General Władysław Anders and his Polish free army, my father found his way to Iraq and eventually to England.
If my father were still alive, what lessons would he impart? He would emphasize that the fascists and the Communists of the time shared similar ideologies and interests, despite being perceived as opposing forces. Their pact reveals this convergence of beliefs – the desire to eliminate elites and impose their own visions of society. My father’s story would shed light on the untold history, revealing the horrific crimes committed by both sides.
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