Banishing the Boogieman: Politics is personal

Suddenly Peter grabbed center stage. This memory is vivid. My parents went out for dinner. I sat cross-legged on the couch doing homework playing an Elvis Presley record. I looked at him now twelve years. He was hunched over a pile of clothes in the middle of Mums Persian rug. What are you doing? Peter had a lighted match in his hand and was moving it towards his new school uniform. I ran at him yelling Stop! His face contorted he grabbed the poker and now I ran from the house. Peter followed wielding the poker. Ill get you . . . Dont interfere! Then he shrieked like a wounded animal. I stopped transfixed. Help! I was responsible for my younger brother but how could I be when he terrified me so. He was the embodiment of all that was horrifying in our family. How could we forget the Holocaust when Peter was both its victim and incarnation. In essence this book is a tale of how Nazism curtailed my parents life opportunities and of how the trauma of the Holocaust impacted my parents my brother and myself. Was Peters illness inevitable or the result of my parents loss and dislocation as European Jews? Was there anything I did - as a child or a young adult - that contributed to my younger brothers struggles or impeded his life-long unsuccessful bid for wholeness? A simple story highlights the impact of Nazism and Apartheid on my life and foreshadows my quest to help others affected by violence mental illness and the asylum seeker issues now prevalent in Australia. My final conclusion politics is personal.