: Hanna Braun
: Weeds Don't Perish Memoirs of a Defiant Old Woman
: Garnet Publishing
: 9781859643143
: 1
: CHF 6.20
:
: Biographien, Autobiographien
: English
: 288
: Wasserzeichen
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
This is the story of a life lived to the full. Hanna Braun was born in 1927 to a Jewish family living in Germany. The family immigrated to Palestine in 1937, shortly after Hitler came to power in Germany and the onset of Jewish persecution there. During this course of events she was separated from her beloved father, who was forced to flee the country and made for Switzerland to escape the Gestapo. Her grandmother later died in the Terezin ghetto. Once in Palestine, Hanna's uncle became a fierce Zionist, and would convert Hanna's mother to Zionism as well. Hanna - a teenager at the time - also turned to Zionism, although she was initially unaware of what exactly this meant. Over the years, Hanna made many Arab friends in Palestine, and gradually began to question her allegiances. She witnessed the formation of the state of Israel, and was there when the atrocities of Deir Yassin happened; an incident that made her hate Zionism forever. These events, and many others explored in Weeds Don't Perish, helped to shape Hanna's perception, and transformed her into an active human rights activist; unable to witness injustice without speaking out. The book is often controversial and Hanna, not being endowed with the gift of great diplomacy, makes many enemies as well as friends along the way. Throughout, Hanna manages to retain her zest for life and her sense of humour, and delights in describing her years teaching English and Dance to her students in Zimbabwe. Her curiosity and enthusiasm for meeting new people and experiencing new things is infectious, and the reader cannot help but be swept up in the story. Hanna also endures many setbacks and painful experiences in her personal life but, like the proverbial weed, she has never given up and refuses to be beaten. Instead, she continues to this day to fight passionately for causes close to her heart - human rights and equality for all.

Chapter Two


My birth certificate gave my name as Lieselott Johanna Fraenkel, born in the prosperous section of Charlottenburg in Berlin, on 25th May 1927, to Dr. Med. Manfred Fraenkel and his wife, Sella Selma Fraenkel. Lilo, a diminutive version of Lieselott, became my name throughout my early childhood until the great watershed when we emigrated and my much-loved father was ousted by the one man I had always resented.

It was a happy, innocent childhood, in which I was surrounded by the love of Mother, Pappi, grandparents and other adoring relations, not forgetting Deta, my nanny, whose name Marta I couldn’t pronounce as a toddler. Deta was a devout Catholic, who sometimes took me and one of her former charges, Peter Rachwalsky, along to church on Sundays, but one day we hurt her feelings when we complained about the stench the man was sprinkling (incense) and she stopped taking us.

I wonder whether Peter was aware that he was Jewish. I certainly wasn’t. Christmas with the tree and presents on Christmas Eve, the carols I sang to the accompaniment of Mother’s piano playing were lovely, with mounting excitement and expectations until the little bell summoned me to come to the drawing room, where a large beautiful Christmas tree had been erected with presents underneath. So was Christmas day with the great meal, Easter and searching for Easter eggs and last but not least St. Nicolas Eve, 6th December, when I would hang out my stocking the previous evening to find it filled with sweets the next morning. According to tradition, only well-behaved children received these. The ones who didn’t make the grade were supposed to find twigs and sticks in their stockings. Speaking to a young German woman some years ago on holiday in Greece, I asserted that surely no child ever received these, but she replied that she did one year.

I was a very agile child and relished almost all forms of gymnastics as well as eurhythmics, something I enjoyed throughout my life and, with the addition of dance and choreography, these have given me much pleasure as well as keeping me nimble far beyond my age. I was so confident in my physical abilities that more than once I made a bit of a fool of myself. During a visit to my grandparents, I was allowed to come along to a eurhythmics class for children aged seven to eight. At the time, I was four years old. Halfway through the lesson, the teacher announced: “Today we are going to try and do a handstand. Is there anyone who can already do it?”

My hand shot up immediately: “I can!”

But, despite trying again and again, I didn’t quite manage. Eventually the teacher said, “Well, maybe another time.”

“But I could do it when I was young”, I insisted and was furious when parents seated round the walls burst out laughing. I was convinced they were laughing because they thought I was lying.

There was a similar occurrence on one of my summer holiday visits to Homburg. The baker’s daughter, twenty at the time, had come on her adult size bike to take orders for bread and other pastries. While I was waiting with her by the window in one of the front rooms, I kept looking at her bike.

“Do you like my bike?” she asked.

“Yes, very much.”

“Can you ride a bike?” was her next question.

I had never been on a bike, but since I was an ace on the scooter, I was sure there couldn’t be that much difference.

“Yes, I can,” I told her.

“Would you like to have a go?”

Of course I did. I wheeled the bike to the s