Now that my novel, When It’s Over, is out in the world, it’s been thrilling to get positive feedback. What better reward for the years of slogging away than to hear that the novel resonates with readers—friends and total strangers alike? But the greatest thrill has been the new connections I’ve made with the descendants of fellow refugees of my mother’s, the real people who inspired the fictional characters in the novel: the group of Jewish and political refugees, mostly Czech, some German, who shared a primitive cottage in a small English village.

In the novel, I placed six refugees in the 2-bedroom cottage; in reality there were eight, but I decided early on that I couldn’t handle that many distinct characters. After the war, the eight scattered, some settling in Australia or New Zealand, others staying in Britain, as did my mother. She married my father, the son of the woman who had sponsored them — the woman who is the inspiration behind the character of “Muriel” in my novel.

I grew up in the same Sussex village where the refugees had found shelter at the start of WWII. I knew the cottage; by then it had been merged with two adjoining houses, and indoor plumbing installed, to bring it more in line with mid-twentieth century standards. But I remember my mother’s stories about the cramped conditions they shared back then and their first impressions of wartime England.

As a child, growing up in the 1950’s and 60’s, I seldom saw those former refugees. Even those who stayed in England were in London; my parents may have seen them for dinner parties or excursions to the theater, but they rarely came down to Sussex. We did receive Christmas presents from them every year—yes, Christmas presents—no mention ever of Hanukkah. We celebrated Christmas as a totally secular holiday. At the end of the war, their families decimated by the Holocaust, they’d agreed to function as surrogate aunts and uncles to each other’s children. I remember well the presents they sent: not the what, but the when; we opened them on Christmas Eve, in accordance with Central European tradition, and we called them the gifts from “Czech Father Christmas”. 

I have only vague and occasional memories of meeting any of them in person. But their names and their stories are seared into my memory, and some of these anecdotes made it into my novel. I changed all the names of the characters and the name of the Sussex village—but they are immediately recognizable to those in the know. And over the past month, I have been in email contact with some of their descendants. Peter, now a man in his seventies, the son of the couple who inspired the characters “Peter and Lotti” in the book (he’s the baby “Charles” born towards the end of the war); another Peter, who is the son of one of the refugees; and James, a grandson of another. They have discovered my novel and are excited to read it. I am beyond excited; I’m like a giddy schoolgirl who has gotten a date to the prom.

The Peter who is “Peter and Lotti’s” son, let’s call him Peter #1, I have met before. He grew up, and still lives in Australia, but he came to California for professional meetings and we connected there. We discovered a shared love of backpacking and similar politics, and felt an instant bond. We subsequently met when we visited Australia seven years ago, around the time I was finishing the first complete draft of my novel. But then we lost touch. Last week, he emailed me when he found my book on the World Wide Web. You did it! was the subject line.

Last week, Peter #2 (he also must be close to 70 now), alerted by Peter #1, contacted me too. He emailed to ask if I might be interested in documents in his possession relating to the British naturalization application of Walter K. Walter was my mother’s boyfriend when she arrived in England, and later became her first husband. He was the inspiration behind the character of “Otto” in the novel – a fictionalized version, as I knew little about the real person. I learned that Peter’s interest stemmed from the fact that his father and uncle had been founding members, along with Walter, of one of the prominent left-wing groups in Prague in the 1930’s.

Was I interested? You bet. Especially when I heard that the file had my mother’s name all over it.  Even though they were divorced by then, the British authorities scrutinized his history, and by association my mother’s, going back to their first arrival in the country.

So I spent hours poring over this huge file. It contains photographed copies of documents from the National Archives: copies of official reports and application forms, typed and hand-written notes on Home Office and Metropolitan Police letterhead, and my mother’s passport from the 1930’s, with her multiple failed attempts to get an entry permit for England. The documentation supports the story she told me of how she finally obtained an entry permit when the Czech authorities-in-exile claimed she was an agent whose services were needed in Britain. It wasn’t true; it was a last-ditch effort to get her out of France, but the British authorities bought it, and she was able to reach safety—just in time.

I knew all this, but it was powerful to see it on paper—well, on a photographed copy in a Google Doc file. There is one tantalizing tidbit: two lines of one document—with the heading “SECRET”—were redacted by MI5, “Closed until 2052”. I cannot fathom what these missing lines could reveal. Perhaps this should be the starting point for another novel.

But for now, I’m just happy to have made these new connections.