Autumn 2012 issue of LIV FUN Magazine - Wise Publishing Group

© Roger Viollet / Getty Images
“My family is Jewish, and the history … well,
I don’t need to spell it out for you.”
RETHINKING
HISTORY
by Pam Mandel
Freelance travel writer and photographer
Out and About
Journeys Completed or Contemplated
One family looks at the past with fresh and
open eyes, seeing the world in a new way.
For many years, my parents insisted
they would never visit Germany. My
family is Jewish, and the history …
well, I don’t need to spell it out for you.
For years they extended that ambivalence
toward Austria, but since I married
an Austrian, and they’ve grown
pretty fond of him, they softened. After
seeing our pictures and hearing about
the beautiful place where my Austrian
grew up, where we were living parttime,
they moderated their views a little.
Time passes, opinions change, and
the draw to see Vienna is undeniable.
They booked a flight.
We booked a picturesque farmhouse
apartment for their stay — chickens
in the yard, tractors in the driveway
— a little one-bedroom flat on the
third floor of a multigenerational farm
house. They would stay a short walk
from our own somewhat spartan housing.
It was a nice place, clean, pretty,
and smack in the middle of a working
farm. They swooned, exactly as we’d
expected, about the landscape and the
flower boxes and the appealing little
valley that my husband called home.
10 LIV FUN / AUTUMN 2012 AUTUMN 2012 / LIV FUN 11
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