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Remembering Marina - Collateral Damage

Collateral: "harm or injury to property or a person."
Damage: of a secondary nature; subordinate" - Websters Dictionary

On this, the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, I am remembering Marina.

Marina was a friend of mine when I was the wife of a primary school teacher in rural Australia. Actually Marina is not her real name, but I'm calling her Marina for reasons that will become obvious.

Marina was never really happy. I used to wonder why. She was about 18 years older than I, and had four delightful girls and a charming husband. She and her husband had emigrated to Australia from Holland shortly after the end of World War II. Their children were all born in Australia.

When talking to Marina, it always seemed that something was gnawing at her soul. She never complained and was outwardly content but something was obviously amiss.

And then one day she told me. Where she was from in Holland I've long since forgotten. It wasn't terribly important. Perhaps it was Rotterdam. She was a young teenager during the war and her family and their neighbours were friendly. She and her brothers and sisters played with the people next door and although food was scarce and she remembers talk of the war, her life as an emerging young woman was a happy one.

Until one day when her neighbours were taken away. Apparently they were Jewish. You can guess the rest. Marina's family did nothing. How could they? There was nothing they could do. They heard it all and listened. They didn't speak up, inquire, let alone object.

Marina never saw her playmates again. Unlike most of us, who have the luxury of being allowed to forget childhood friends, Marina can never forget hers. She is burdened with a guilt she for which can never atone. She told me that when she looks at her own children she remembers the others, the neighbours' in Holland, long gone.

I am old enough to have memories of the direct aftermath ofWorld War II. I remember seeing tattooed numbers on the arms of the parents of my school mates. I attended a predominantly Jewish school in St Kilda, Melbourne and heard sad accounts of lives in Europe. My parents both taught me about the dangers of intolerance. But for some reason, the horror of Marina's memories has made a much deeper mark.

Yes there have been many injustices since Marina's neighbours were carted off. Maybe greater ones in terms of number of lives lost. But these in no way lessen the impact of those of sixty years' ago.

And so this week I remember Marina. An unintended casualty of evil.

Lest We Forget

Kate Juliff
New York
January 2005