Letter published in the AJR Journal, organ of the Association of Jewish Refugees

Volume 12  No 3  March 2012

To explain: Letters and articles in the magazine often express the same view as Anthony  Grenville’s, presumably trying to make out that we are now all genuine Englishmen, born and bred,  have in fact become indigenous – an utter impossibility, and an absurdity to this Londoner Berliner, me…

AN ABSURD NOTION

Sir

Anthony  Grenville, whose erudition and style I greatly admire, writes in his Double Exposure project in Vienna of “former victims of Nazi persecution”, as well as of “former refugees” and of interviews with “former Austrians”.

“Former Austrians” I can take: They are no doubt Austrians no longer. “Former Refugees” I personally find an absurd notion, as my experience of being a refugee is perhaps the most important psychological influence on me apart from birth itself; I’m a marked man. And “former victims of Nazi persecution”? IMPOSSIBLE.

Peter Zander, London W1