Thursday’s Child
Robyn Gerland’s latest novel, Thursday’s Child, is based on extensive of interviews with Hanka Middelstaet, who escaped with her mother from Nazi occupied Warsaw during World War 11. She was 5 years old when, 1939, the German army invaded  Poland. “… before I understood the words, Auschwitz and Holocaust.” 
Her story follows their journey across Europe until, in 1945 when they finally cross the border into Switzerland, “There!” In the distance, flew a bright red flag with  the large white Swiss cross in the centre.  I had expected a great, cement barrier perhaps with giant padlocks, but here we finally stood faced with a flimsy piece of wood no greater than one of the two-by-sixes that had created fences around some Warsaw homes in an earlier time. And more surprising and certainly more upsetting, just as we arrived, that barrier groaned into action and began a slow, tantalizing downward drop.”