23. When ordinary people chose to be extraordinary
J.L. Witterick is the international best-selling author of the novel, My Mother’s Secret. It was suggested to me by a friend living in Canada since I love to read Second World War books.
He spoke highly about the book but when I found that the writer is originally from Taiwan, and has been living in Canada since 1968, my impression was ‘it must be entirely an imagined story’ and I hate to read such a book (about Nazis and their time) instead I prefer to read books written by those who have suffered or whose parents have suffered the holocaust.
They know the realities.
Although after finishing the book I couldn’t connect with the characters yet I recommend you to read this book because it’s a beautiful book of hope, courage, kindness, love and a constant reminder of acts of kindness.
It is a story how ordinary people behave when without any conscious decision they chose to be extraordinary.
The story is told from four different perspectives.
Helena’s father is Ukrainian and mother is Polish, but they moved to Germany, where the opportunities were better than in Poland.
Her father is a machinist, and mother works as a cook for a wealthy German family who often brings leftovers home for her children.
Father says, “Hitler is the answer to the problems of the German people because he promises better times,” and “Germany will be a great power again if Hitler is the leader.”
Mother doesn’t pass judgment on groups of people. She believes in the individual and says, “Not all Germans are good or bad, and the same with Jews.”
Hitler becomes chancellor on January 30, 1933.
One day, the mother decided to move back to Poland that meant she is leaving him because he would never return to a country he felt was backward compared to Germany.
There are some good statements made by the mother.
One such is, “If you choose to do the right thing, it’s a conscious decision at first. Then it becomes second nature. You don’t have to think about what is right because doing the right thing becomes who you are, like a reflex. Your actions with time become your character.”
With her savings, the mother buys a small house with some land for raising chickens and growing vegetables in her hometown of Sokal, Poland where there were three distinct communities: Ukrainian, Polish, and Jewish.
The Ukrainians didn’t trust the Poles, the Poles didn’t trust the Ukrainians, and they both didn’t trust the Jews.
The mother saves the lives of two Jewish families by hiding them from the Nazis.
Providing shelter to Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland was a death sentence, but the mother named Franciszka and her daughter Helena do exactly that. In their tiny home, they hide a Jewish family in a loft above their pigsty, a Jewish doctor with his wife and son in a makeshift cellar under the kitchen, and a defecting German soldier in the attic—each party completely unknown to the others.
And for everyone to survive, the mother and daughter had to outsmart her neighbors and the German police.
That’s the story in short but the writing, the narration and dialogues - what make the book really readable.
(Top Photo: J.L. Witterick, the author)