Why my father was abandoned and the empathy I now have for his mother

Jane Messer grew up with a loving father who never really understood why as a child his mother left him and his older sister at a boarding school, so she decided to find out the full story and prove that he was in fact, loved.

Her father Michael was born in Berlin in the years between the two world and to escape Nazi Germany he was sent to live in England as a child.

There were a few fleeting visits but then Michael didn’t see his mother again for another 13 years and he always said she never loved him.

As Jane grew older and became a mother herself, she knew there had to be more to Bella’s story and so she went on the trail from pre-war Berlin to Tel Aviv to Melbourne, to try to understand the choices made in extraordinary circumstances. 

Further informationJane Messer's family memoir is called Raven Mother 

This episode of Conversation explores family history, the Holocaust, Nazi Germany, suicide, boarding school, Palestine, the Nakba, Berlin, World War 2, immigration, the British Mandated Palestine, memoir.