Vera Gissing - April 22, 2006
Memories
Is it a daily occurrence—something comes into your mind that...
No, definitely not a daily occurrence. Look, I mean, I had the chance, which very few people have, of keeping my parents alive through my books, right. And, and it makes me proud that I can do it, and so glad that I can bring understanding to the younger generation, you know, through the book—or through the books really. Because, because they can identify with me as the little girl I was then with my—and growing up. You know, and in the—these extreme circumstances we had to grow up.
So you were grown up at age eleven.
Hm?
You grew up at age eleven.
Really, yes.
You—oh...
To a big, to a big extent.
Do you have a kind of reaction getting on a train?
No, I do when I am in Czecho. You know, if I go to my hometown, which is outside Prague, they still use exactly the same train as when I was, you know, ten years old. And they still—you don't have a platform, you know, you're just stuck out in the middle of nowhere and you make sure that there's nothing coming either way and, you know, you run across. And that's always—I can almost smell uh, how they were and also the seats are hard as they were in 19...uh, uh, when was it, 1939?
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