I don't remember seeing the TV series of the Diary of Anne Frank, but I read the diary itself many years ago. I'm writing this in a hotel room in BudaPest, Hungary, after arriving from Prague in the Czech Republic yesterday.
In Prague I was able to visit the Cathedral of St Cyril and St Methodosius and the crypt beneath it in which the Czech parachute team sent to assassinate Rheinhard Heydrich fought to their last bullet. It is a deeply poignant place. In Prague our guide spoke of a prewar population of some 600,000 Jews, reduced now to around 6,000.
Here in BudaPest the Hungarians fell victim to two dictators in succession. Compelled, it seems, to fight for Nazi Germany, they were 'liberated' by Soviet Russia in 1945, against whom they fought an abortive revolution ten years later, finally emerging from the 'communist yoke' in the late 90s. Here many buildings still wear the bullet hole and shrapnel scars.
And in a day or three I will be in Vienna, always locked in my mind as the place where Adolf Hitler seems to have formulated most of his anti-semitic theories.
There is a very great deal that is interesting about the First World War, however, and it is worth looking at closely. The First World War planted the seeds of the second, and that is well worth remembering.
The men who fought - on all sides - are worth remembering too, as are the women who loved and supported them. Through history I remember them, with some pride and a very great deal of sadness.
I don't remember seeing the TV series of the Diary of Anne Frank, but I read the diary itself many years ago. I'm writing this in a hotel room in BudaPest, Hungary, after arriving from Prague in the Czech Republic yesterday.
In Prague I was able to visit the Cathedral of St Cyril and St Methodosius and the crypt beneath it in which the Czech parachute team sent to assassinate Rheinhard Heydrich fought to their last bullet. It is a deeply poignant place. In Prague our guide spoke of a prewar population of some 600,000 Jews, reduced now to around 6,000.
Here in BudaPest the Hungarians fell victim to two dictators in succession. Compelled, it seems, to fight for Nazi Germany, they were 'liberated' by Soviet Russia in 1945, against whom they fought an abortive revolution ten years later, finally emerging from the 'communist yoke' in the late 90s. Here many buildings still wear the bullet hole and shrapnel scars.
And in a day or three I will be in Vienna, always locked in my mind as the place where Adolf Hitler seems to have formulated most of his anti-semitic theories.
There is a very great deal that is interesting about the First World War, however, and it is worth looking at closely. The First World War planted the seeds of the second, and that is well worth remembering.
The men who fought - on all sides - are worth remembering too, as are the women who loved and supported them. Through history I remember them, with some pride and a very great deal of sadness.
