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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13828
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Just before my son and heir vanished to Thailand and beyond (the curious can see http://www.getjealous.com/aletal and follow his travels), we were at my mother's house, and he asked for more information about my father, who died before he was born.
I showed him a folder my mother has kept with all of his papers. One was his Viennese identity card. Stamped on the card is:
J
The real "J" is substantially larger, it takes up almost the entire side of the card. There was nothing subtle about Nazi persection.
I know I knew the significance before he showed me while he was reading it, but it came home, suddenly.
Then, tonight, I was watching, am watching, a genealogy show, following Stephen Fry's ancestors back. He visited, as I visited, his ancestors' last known residence. There was a plaque. They perished in Riga. My visit was easier on the emotions, and just found a bland concrete block in Praterstrasse where my father's family lived. He got his family, all of them, out of Austria, so an easier ending.
I know I'm rambling slightly. I'm not sure of what I want to say, not quite. I think I am feeling part of a minority, though I am not Jewish (my mother was not, and he converted to "convenience christianity" to avoid, he hoped, future persecution - they were not observant Jews, just racial Jews, if you follow me. Pork was not a stranger to their household), and a minority within a minority.
Now I know I'm rambling!
I mean that I am descended from persecuted Jews, and I am gay within that subset. A minority within a minority. It brings tears to my eyes. I'm not entirely sure why.
[Updated on: Sat, 29 September 2007 20:25]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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