Final Witness by Zoltan Zinn-Collis

Author:Zoltan Zinn-Collis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bergen-Belsen, Belsen, Nazi, Concentration Camp, World War 2, Germany, Holocaust
Publisher: Maverick Publishing Ltd.
Published: 2014-04-24T19:14:34+00:00

PART THREE

The End

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become as sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.

—1 Corinthians 13:1

IN THE MIDST OF WRITING THIS book, I went to Adam’s fourth birthday party. Adam is my first grandchild by my third daughter, Nichola. The grown-ups had a good time, although I am not too sure about Adam. I think he may have been a little overwhelmed by it all. This party was held in an auntie’s house, a very nice house in the country. We had a summer’s day, one of the few this year, so it was all lovely.

It has made me think about a few things. Most of the people there were Nichola’s in-laws, but there were about 45 people there—which, in fact, is why the birthday boy was overwhelmed. Again, I thought of my lost family—my lost siblings. But maybe I had better rethink what I was saying about seventh generations. There was no deficit here; Adam has no shortage of uncles, aunts and cousins. Fair enough, my children and I are rather short on the relations—but the grandchildren, it seems, will be fine. I’m pretty sure the Bible says somewhere else, ‘Go forth and multiply.’ And so I have.

Nichola’s husband has changed his name by deed-poll to Zinn-Collis. I am not exactly sure what his motive was, but I think I can assume it was not to steal my identity and defraud me on the internet. It means that the name will continue after I am gone. At these family gatherings the Zinn-Collis contingent will still be rather low in numbers, but is it not the quality rather than the quantity that counts? Besides, if Bob taught me anything, it is that you do not need to be bound by blood to be a family.

. . .

The flooded hotel apparently didn’t fit where I had told the owner to put it, so Joan and I had to move on. There was a northern branch of the Collis family, who knew of someone building a brand new hotel outside Antrim town. Hotels need chefs, of course, and I duly got myself a job. To be honest, I was a bit out of my depth at the beginning, but two young chefs came from England to join me, and a bit of healthy competition spurred us all on. I worked there for about two years, during which time Joan and I had a daughter, Siobhan. She was born in 1967—a year and a month after we were married. Siobhan took a while to make her appearance—as, I think, is usual with first children. That was before the time when daddies witnessed the birth of their children. While Siobhan was being born, I was making myself very busy scraping paint off the walls of my first house and driving the hospital mad by phoning every ten minutes to see what had happened. She was the spit of my sister Edit when she was a baby.

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