A note from Bavaria

Hannah Miska

In my last Centre News letter I said my connection with the Centre would continue. Oddly enough, I did not even have to do anything actively to make this happen: a few weeks ago, out of the blue, I received a phone call from someone I had not met whose name is Sabine Zürn. She explained that on a holiday in Australia in December 2009 she came across the Jewish Holocaust Centre by chance. At the Centre she met Willy Lermer, who later sent her the September 2010 edition of Centre News, which included my ‘Letter from Bavaria’. As a result she found my name in the telephone book and rang me.

But why? Sabine Zürn is chief editor at a large German publishing house which has just published a most interesting book about the Third Reich written by Hermann Vinke, entitled Wunden, die nie ganz verheilten: Das Dritte Reich in der Erinnerung von Zeitzeugen (Wounds that never fully healed: The Third Reich in the memories of witnesses). Sabine has a great interest in the Holocaust, and was very impressed with the Jewish Holocaust Centre’s museum. So, back in Germany, she was curious to find out more details about the Centre – its history, people, museum and programs. She has also offered to facilitate the publication of my book about Melbourne Holocaust survivors, and has given me many useful contacts.

We met not long after the phone call and our three hours together in a Munich café just flew. Sabine told me that two months before her Australian holiday she had learned about the Dachau Remembrance Book, a project involving the collection of the biographies of former Dachau concentration camp prisoners. So, when she met Willy Lermer, a survivor of Dachau, it was clear to her that she had to write his biography for that project. I am writing this before the launch of the project on 22 March at the Dachau concentration camp memorial, but I plan to be there and promise to tell you all about it in the next edition of Centre News

Hannah Miska arrived in Melbourne in 2003. She visited the Jewish Holocaust Centre at the end of 2006 and immediately decided to become a volunteer. She undertook a variety of tasks, including writing the stories of survivor guides. She returned to Germany in 2010.