Last night, after we put my daughter to bed, we went downstairs to look at the Xmas tree one last time before taking it down today. Then I went upstairs to do some writing, & I came across something in my grandmother's memoirs that stopped me short. I want to share it.

Before she died, my dad sat down with my grandma, who I knew as Omi, & helped her write down her memories of her early life, growing up in Nazi Germany. Later, a little sheepishly, he sent what he'd written to me. I think because I'm the only 'writer' in the family.

A lot of her memories are fuzzy - they were 70 years old - but glancing through I spotted a date: Jan 5th, 1945. It's one of the only exact dates in the entire thing. I was reading her memory from 75 years ago, to the day.

She remembered the Christmas of winter 1944 as one of her happiest ever. Her father returned home with a goose. The whole family were together. They were living in Kattowitz, in Upper Silesia. She was a teenager, working as a stenographer for the Hitler Youth.

Her happiness contrasts strongly with what was going on around her. Holocaust survivor Viktor E Frankl remembered a rise in camp deaths around Xmas 1944, which he attributed to prisoners who had believed they'd be 'out by Xmas' losing hope.

She told my dad she'd heard rumours of what was going on. She said one of her friends had asked 'Why are there so many empty prams on Auschwitz Station?' But her father had told her not to believe scurrilous anti-German gossip.

She herself was congenitally disabled. She had displaced hips & walked with a stick. Any perceived physical imperfection was, as you can imagine, unpopular with Nazis. Her teachers used to mock her in front of the class.

Anyway. One night around Christmas, there was an air raid while she was at work. She had a special portable typewriter to take down into the shelter, but her department chief, being a fascist & all, ordered her to carry down the heavy full-sized typewriter instead.

Carrying the heavy typewriter in a rush, she lost her balance, fell & injured herself. The doctor said she would need to travel to the hospital in Beuthen for a major operation. It would likely mean a stay of 8 weeks.

That's why she remembered the night of Jan 5th, 1945. She turned to look at the family Christmas tree, decorated in white & silver, one last time. She was leaving the next morning, & she knew would not see her home again for 8 weeks. In fact, she never saw it again for 50 years.

While she was in Beuthen, about 20k away, the war drew close to Kattowitz. Her family & co-workers were evacuated. She was in a lower body cast & couldn't move. Her cast was so heavy it broke the bed. Patients were taken away by train.

She ended up far away, in a very long saga that ultimately required her demanding to be cut out of her cast & walking, disabled, across Germany, including through the bombed-out ruins of Dresden, until, after various travails, she managed to find her family again.

But her co-workers were evacuated to Czechoslovakia. She would have been expected to go with them, not her family. (her father didn't take any furniture with them & few belongings, because such behaviour was shamed as 'defeatist'. It was all stolen, down to the lightbulbs)

After the war, Germans in Czechoslovakia were placed in internment camps & forcibly expelled. Many were executed, many died of starvation or disease, thousands committed suicide. Some were transported to Soviet labour camps. Her co-workers were never heard from again.

Her arsehole Nazi boss playing to type & ordering her to carry a heavy typewriter saved her life.

She didn't know that then, on that night 75 years ago, as she gazed at the family Christmas tree & contemplated an uncertain future. She had no idea that her apparent misfortune would mean she lived to meet my grandfather after the war, & move to England.

She didn't know that she would have my dad, who would have me, who, 75 Christmases later, would be gazing at his own Christmas tree, thinking of her, having just put his own daughter to bed.

She was right to be apprehensive. She had a lot of tough times ahead. She would be caught in the crossfire of a battle, have a rifle pointed at her head, would even have to fight off a soldier with her crutches before she'd see her family again.

It would be hard. But ultimately, her hardships gained meaning far beyond what anyone could have imagined. Me, my cousins & our children all exist because of what happened. Today, when we take down the tree, I'll be thinking of Omi. x