My mother carried secrets and covered them with lies. She didn't mean to. They were thrust upon her. Terrified her lies would be discovered, she buried them deeper and deeper, driving them further and further away. But little by little, her secrets gradually unravelled and become part of my existence. At the end of her life, with Alzheimer's overtaking her mind, they resurfaced with a vengeance.
A first glimpse into my mother's past came in the summer of 1978. She and I travel from Estevan, Saskatchewan, where I was born, to Amsterdam, Holland, the country of her birth. There I am introduced to relatives I never knew existed. Picking up on subtle clues, I realize that my mother's background is Jewish. Dutch Jewish. Holocaust Jewish. She-unable to speak of it, and I-forbidden to bring it up.
After my mother died, I felt a freedom-coupled with an urging and obligation-to expose the past. What I uncovered was staggering and shocking. Based on true stories, DISCOVERING TWINS uses historical fiction to bring lost family members to life, and memoir to trace this intricate, moving journey of discovery. No secret is safe forever.
This is a true story; the story of family, the discovering of family, and the discovery of secrets, hidden, but hoping desperately to be found. The names, places, and events are real; the dates are real. Scattered amongst the memories are fictionalized short stories where the only truths available were gleaned from scattered bits of information and genealogical sets of dates. I imagined my way through these bits to create glimpses into lives unknown; a journey into lifetimes.
The stories, though fictionalized, are historically accurate for their time. Much of the detail described, even tiny details of specific items, food, phrases and places, mirrors my own life experiences, or are based on the lives of relatives and stories shared. Historical events alluded to or directly referenced are the result of intensive internet research, spurned on by the briefest of dates. A myriad of dates are quoted, which at first, gives the impression of a rather long list of tedious numbers and data. Most writers avoid dates like the plague! But this story exists almost exclusively because of the dates. A deeper reflection of them reveals truths so dark the mind flounders to navigate through them.
This is not a Holocaust story, but yet, the Holocaust looms. There are no brilliant escapes, no miraculous heroic feats. The viewpoints narrow in on life before that time, at that time, then interrupted for all time.
