A true story

I would like to share with you a story from my own family. Recently, the book "Min mors hemmelighed" (My mother's secret) by Karin Lützen was published. It is a story told by my mother's cousin about origin and identity.
Irene, the mother, was French. Her style, her clothes, her perfume, her accent, her behaviour - everything about her was impeccably French. She came to Denmark after World War II, and met Kaj Lützen. They married and had three children.
For Irene it was very important to remain French, and she was not too shy to voice her opinion - that Danish culture was rather coarse, and by no means as refined and elevated as French culture.
But when her children asked about her own family, she told them very little, or even dismissed the question. They learned that it was a painful issue, and so they respected the mother. Karin was particularly interested in her French background, and identified herself with it.
But after Irene's death in 1998, something changed. The children talked about their mother with her good friend, Arlette - who was Jewish, and had been to a concentration camp. "By the way" she said, "did you know that your grandmother was Jewish?" They didn't. And when they obtained the personal documents belonging to their grandparents, they saw that something was not right.
Eventually, Karin found out that her grandparents were in fact Romanian Jews. It turns out that Irene's parents had left Romania, due to poverty and persecution, and had fled to Paris, where they had a daughter. Many of their close relatives were killed in concentration camps. Karin has also met some of the remaining relatives. Of course, Irene's children were quite surprised by these discoveries. Their own cultural identity had suddenly changed overnight. Afterwards, the family had to re-evaluate everything. All their memories about their mother were now seen and reflected upon in a different light. Was Irene's Frenchness just a bluff? Why did not she acknowledge her Jewish roots? Irene must have known about her parents' origin. But for more than 50 years she kept to the official story - that she and her parents were French. Why? No-one knows. She was buried with the secret. The truth about her silence cannot be found. But the story of her life can be re-written.

See: http://politiken.dk/boger/faglitteratur_boger/article664407.ece (Sorry, it's in Danish.)