Anca's Story--a novel of the Holocaust Read online

  Anca's Story

  by

  Mark Williams

  previously published under the pen-name

  Saffina Desforges

  This edition copyright Mark Williams 2015.

  All rights reserved.

  This story is a work of fiction. The resemblance of any characters to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Anca's Story - 70th Anniversary End of WWII, 70th Anniversary Liberation of Auschwitz

  To Anca

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  Odyssey

  Mark Williams

  international bestselling author

  British ex-pat writing beneath picture post-card blue skies in West Africa

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  Foreword

  The year 2015 marked the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. And with it, the 70th anniversary of the end of the Holocaust.

  2020 will mark the 75th anniversary of these events.

  As we approach 2020 the last veterans of the Second World War have all but left us, and in the not too distant future the last living souls old enough to have any memory of those events will pass on.

  World War II and the Holocaust will fade, literally, from living memory and become, in every sense of the word, history.

  The characters in this story are fictional. The events we call the Holocaust were very, very real.

  As we countdown to the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and the end of World war II, we shall remember them.

  Mark Williams

  Praise for Anca’s Story

  The following are from verified purchase reviews on the sites of some of the world’s biggest book retailers.

  Probably the most powerful ending to a book I have ever read... the book was both beautiful and horrifying... an amazing read, a sobering story.

  Passionate and Powerful Story. After just finishing Anca's story, I am sat heartbroken, not because this story is real, it is of course fiction, but for the fact that the Holocaust happened. This is a story of determination, courage and love of 3 children from 2 different backgrounds. The book is beautifully written, with extremely likeable characters. It is not a book I would normally choose but I have been blown away by how powerful a story it is.

  Heart wrenching, truly amazing! The story totally captivated me, drawing me in on the children's journey with them. A book so emotive that it had me in tears not just for the children in the story but for the people that had suffered the story for real. I haven't been so emotionally effected by a book before in all the years I have been reading.

  Holocaust Tears. Anca's Story is an emotionally charged book. It sucked me in as Anca began to relate her World War II experiences to modern school children. From nearly the first I have been in tears, both for joy and for sorrow.

  Powerful beyond words! What a powerful and breathtaking story, it keeps you hooked from the first page. A beautifully written book.

  Once in a while you come across something special. Anca's Story is definitely one of those. It brings back to us the horrors of the Holocaust seen through the eyes of a young girl who touches our hearts in every way possible.

  Harrowing and gripping. This novel was so different from every other I've read about the holocaust. I can't do this book justice in a review and am tripping over my words trying to explain it – in a nutshell...AMAZING

  This story shocked me to my core.

  A very moving story and one that kept my interest. I wanted to shout out to Anca and warn her... I couldn't put it down. I have read many books on this subject and must say this is one of the best so far. This book would make an excellent film, and I particularly liked the naivety of the young children and their journey.

  This was a very moving true story. I found it almost impossible to put down. It is a well written and easily read book. I found myself moved to anger and to tears many times. I defy anyone to read this and not be moved by Anca’s Story.

  This was such a powerful book about the Holocaust through the eyes of a 12 year old girl. I could not put it down. From start to finish every page was gripping made me cry. A must read.

  I had to keep reminding myself this story was fictional. The book is so well written it is very believable. I have visited Auschwitz myself and found it very hard to walk round it. (The author) describes this place so well I felt I was walking round it all over again

  Ought to be compulsory reading in schools. The book opens with the Survivor being mocked by an uninterested young person, but as Anca tells her story, respect for her incredible survival and moving on, after the war, is felt. Movingly told.

  Very well written book. I would not hesitate to recommend it. It doesn't follow the usual lines that you would expect a Holocaust novel to take, but it encapsulates the feeling of the writer perfectly. I could not put it down.

  This story told from a child's perspective, brings an alternative understanding of the horrors of the holocaust. It would be a good book for teenagers to read as they still have the ability to trust and could understand the naive determination of the children in the story. This is a book that should be available in schools.

  Author’s Note

  This story begins and ends in the United Kingdom, although the key locations are in Romania and Poland.

  The book was written by a British author using standard British-English spellings.

  A reminder that this is a fictional memoir, although of course the Holocaust was tragically real.

  To Anca

  This book is dedicated to the real Anca Pasculata, who as my fourteen year old pen-friend in Romania, regaled me with tales of the suffering her family endured in eastern Europe in World War Two.

  Anca’s last pen-pal letter to me, beautifully handwritten in English and always so eloquent, arrived just days after the 1977 Bucharest earthquake. It would be over a year before I was finally able to confirm the worst, and learned that Anca was among the 1,500 who had perished during the one-minute tremor.

  As young teenagers Anca and I, aspiring authors with untold energy and limitless ambition, of
ten discussed the possibility of writing books together. Of course, that was never to be, but the seed had been sown.

  Anca’s Story, while not of course Anca’s words, is written in her uniquely eloquent style of English to honour her memory.

  1.

  Replete in casual suit, no tie, and perfectly manicured nails, Mr. Wilkinson led me gently into the empty classroom.

  Desks had been thoughtfully moved to one side, the seats arranged in rows in a semi-circle directed towards a single chair that I guessed it would be my privilege to occupy.

  Mr. Wilkinson asked, “Will this be comfortable enough for you?”

  I nodded, easing forward on my walking frame, unable to speak.

  My throat felt dry, my clammy hands gripping my frame tightly to conceal the shake. I wanted to leave, to make my excuses and return to the security of my sheltered home, but I fought against my instincts.

  For weeks now I had been preparing for this day.

  Making notes.

  Drawing on long-forgotten memories.

  Struggling to bring order to my thoughts.

  Now, at last, the moment had arrived. The time had come, to relate a story I had kept buried deep within me for almost six decades. I prayed I could maintain my composure before my audience when they arrived.

  My host seemed quite indifferent to my plight, chatting amiably about the curriculum. Only half-listening, I cast my eyes around the room, searching unsuccessfully for the comfort of a blackboard. My eyes alighted on a white screen. I caught my breath, interrupting Mr. Wilkinson to apologise for not having brought any slides along.

  Mr. Wilkinson tried to hide a smile, explaining to me this was an interactive whiteboard.

  My blank response saw him toying with a keyboard with practiced movements that put my own humble typing skills to shame, bringing the screen to life in a blaze of colour and sound. Maps and still photographs combined with video clips and commentary and suddenly I could witness the rise of Nazi Germany, Hitler’s invasion of Poland, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour...

  This was twenty-first century interactive education, Mr. Wilkinson explained with undisguised glee, extolling the virtues of IT in his class as if it were his personal invention.

  Not just the Second World War, he stressed, but any other conflict I would care to mention, from the Mycenaean battles of antiquity to the more recent Gulf Wars. I need but name it and he could produce a file or web-site to bring it to life before my eyes.

  I declined the offer, struggling to explain that for me there was only one war.

  His condescending smile said it all.

  I was an old lady, living in the past, unable to see the greater picture.

  And slowly I realised my role in being here today was not so much to bring recent history to life, but rather to say goodbye to it.

  2.

  As I gathered my thoughts the door opened and the children began to file in. A few glanced my way and I responded with an awkward smile, unsure how best to acknowledge them.

  I watched as they selected their positions in the semi-circle around me. One or two extracted notebooks and pens from their bags, but without much enthusiasm. Mostly they slumped into their seats and carried on their private discussions seemingly oblivious to my presence, as if hoping the lesson would be somehow delayed until they had finished.

  “Settle down, 9B.” The sharp rap of knuckles on wood brought the class to order.

  With noisy sighs of resignation the children turned their attention to the teacher, some noticing me for the first time. They stared at me, perhaps wondering what sundry lecture I had been instructed to bore them with on this occasion.

  “9B, that will do.” Mr. Wilkinson’s stern gaze dared them to dissent. The class fell silent. After a few seconds he said, “Today we have as our guest Mrs. Jones, who has kindly volunteered her time to talk to you about her personal experience of World War Two and the Holocaust. About how...”

  I felt waves of panic sweep over me. I clutched my chair, closing my eyes, willing it to pass. For a moment I felt faint.

  Mr. Wilkinson’s words came back into focus. “...therefore I expect you all to give her your undivided attention for the next forty minutes and, hopefully, to come up with some...” He paused for effect. “Some intelligent questions to ask when she has finished.”

  There was a groan of dismay at this proposal and I realized few here wished to hear what I had to say.

  As I looked about me at these fresh young faces, thirteen and fourteen year olds whose idea of trauma was to miss a favourite television programme or to be deprived of their mobile phone for an hour, I could see in their bright eyes a mirror of my own childhood, of my own indifference to even current affairs, let alone the past.

  I remembered how irrelevant even the day’s news had been. How could I possibly ask that these children be interested in what happened to me, seven decades ago, long before their parents were born? Perhaps even before their grandparents were born?

  I studied their clean features, their shining hair, immaculately ironed uniforms, polished shoes beneath socks neatly at half mast. In return they stared back, some sullenly, others in a spirit of hope over experience, waiting for me to start.

  The sooner to finish, no doubt.

  I chose my words carefully and began.

  3.

  “My name is Anca. Anca Pasculata. Your teacher introduced me as Mrs. Jones, and that is indeed my name now, for I came to your country in nineteen forty-eight, married in nineteen fifty-four and have lived here in the United Kingdom ever since. But for today, for the purpose of this lesson, I am Anca Pasculata once more.

  “The name is Romanian, for such are my origins. I was born in Romania and my parents, my family, were all of that country.”

  Blank faces stared back at me. I suspected they were as indifferent to geography as they were to history, and had no idea where Romania was.

  No matter.

  I gathered my thoughts. “I had intended to begin by explaining a little of the background to the war, but your teacher has shown me some of the remarkable materials you have to work with and I realise that is not necessary. To be honest, you probably know more about the war itself than I do.”

  I took a deep breath, conscious of the tremor in my voice

  “So I shall begin not at the beginning but rather towards the end of the war, for that is when my own story starts. I want to take you back to a year before the war ended. To nineteen forty-four.”

  I paused to study my audience, already showing advanced signs of boredom. Someone stifled a yawn. Several were fidgeting with bags or equipment. One seemed to be texting from a mobile phone secreted behind their pencil-case. I pressed on, hoping somehow to earn their attention, if not their respect.

  “I was twelve years old at this time. Just a little younger than you are now. I was lucky enough to have enjoyed an education until then, though it hardly compared with your own. School, for us, was a single, bare, unlit, un-heated classroom. A place where paper and pencils were luxuries, and memory our most precious asset.”

  I was pleased to see a few heads turn my way. I pressed on.

  “This was a time before computers, or even calculators. Before television, even in the advanced industrial countries like your own. For a backward, peasant country like Romania even radio and newspapers were luxuries beyond our day to day experience.”

  A couple of girls exchanged glances, perhaps trying to imagine life before computers.

  I said, “Certainly I knew nothing of the world about me. Not even of the global nature of the war that had already been raging four long years by this time. Our country was under Nazi German domination, that much I knew. I vaguely understood other, neighbouring countries to be involved somehow, but to what end, on whose side, I neither knew nor cared. I was aware only of events in my own small world. And that world was one insignificant town in a backward, insular country in eastern Europe.”

  A boy to one side was whispe
ring loudly to his classmate. Mr. Wilkinson rapped a ruler on the desk.

  “Ben, at least have the courtesy to be quiet, if you can’t be bothered to listen. Mrs. Jones has been to a great deal of trouble to be here with us today.”

  The boy called Ben stretched out in his chair, a calculated show of disinterest. “Yeah, but it’s boring, Sir. Why can’t we do it on the computer instead, if we have to do it at all? No-one cares about history.”

  The boy cast his eyes about his fellow pupils conspiratorially before adding, “Least of all the Holocaust.” The child looked directly at me, a smirk on his face. “It’s only about dead Jews.”

  “One more remark like that and you’ll be up before the Head.” Mr. Wilkinson’s sharp rebuke silenced the boy. To me, “I’m so very sorry, Mrs Jones.”

  I could feel the teacher’s embarrassment at his pupil’s conduct, and at my discomfort. I raised a shaking hand to stay his apologies, but speech failed me. Not that I was offended by the child’s words. Rather, shocked that any child could be so insolent in the presence of a master.

  Mr Wilkinson turned to the boy again. “Ben, you will apologise immediately.”

  The boy leaned forward in turn, staring back at his teacher.

  Mr. Wilkinson took a step towards the child. “I won’t tell you again.”

  Some of the other children glared at the boy. I heard three or four girls urge him to apologise. Others were nodding agreement.

  Ben forced a sullen “Sorry, Miss,” as he slunk back into his chair, still privately delighted with his performance.

  I forced a smile, addressing the boy directly. “I can assure you, Ben, that, if old and frail, I am still very much alive, and anticipate being around a few years more yet.”

  The class appreciated my little joke and I pushed home my advantage. “Nor, I might add, am I a Jew.”

  The teacher shot me a surprised look.

  I said, “Mr Wilkinson asked me to bring along any personal effects I had, to help illustrate my story. Photographs of my family and friends; mementoes of that time. Of the Holocaust.” I splayed my palms theatrically. “You will notice I have brought nothing.”