Page 14 (1/2)

I wander off byabout the Holocaust and what Burke said I want to cou to make such accusations about

I don’t pay much attention to the exhibits So for me to join theet that girl’s book out ofhard, unaware of the ar the house, crashing in, taking , down the stairs to the World War I section, familiar from my previous visit I wish I’d paid more attention before If I had, maybe I’d understand about the tars, how one led to the next, how other nations let the Nazis build and spread and do whatever they liked

There’s a trench re-creation that I vaguely recall, a life-size ive an idea of the hellish conditions soldiers lived in before they went over the top to be ripped apart by ht to study the details, holes where soldiers slept, things they ate, fake rats

In a strange way I feel better here It helps distract me from the horrors upstairs This as brutal but huht other soldiers Millions died, but there were no death cairls were rounded up, huo back in ti here, in the years before the truly horrific war began, before people found out just how demonically vile they could be I could live with a war like this But not the one that followed And for Burke to say that my dad was no better than a Nazi

My blood boils and rushes to my cheeks I won’t let that insult drop I’ll tell Mrs Reed Burke can’t say things like that If I rat on hier

But as much as I’d like to hurt Burke, I don’t want to do that Partly because nobody likes a grass But ot under s as they are I know Dad’s no saint but I’ve never thought of hiht, and I take Dad’s side, the way I’ve gone along with him for all these years, won’t that make me a monster too?

I’ve told myself it doesn’t matter that I never stood up to Dad For the sake of a quiet life I’ve pretended to be on the sae as hi ahi that recently, even before what happened with Nancy

Did people likewith the Nazis that way in the early days? Did other children put on an act for their fathers, figuring nothing bad could come of it? Can the terrors of that war in some way be traced back to the kids who didn’t put their parents on the spot?

As I’ my twisted relationship with Dad, I turn a corner and spot a struggle ahead Twowith an Indian woman She has a head scarf, a painted dot in thedress, the works One of the ape at theoes down like a doll that’s been dropped

There’s a baby in a stroller,One of the lance around It’s dark in here and they’re not that close tohoodies I can’t see their faces "What the hell are you doing?"

Thethe baby The wo and closing, clutching for the stolen boy

I race after the ht There’s no tiht of them, they’ll disappear into the warren of the museum and that’ll be the last I see of the child