Jill Marion Parris

BANISHING THE BOOGIEMAN: POLITIC IS PERSONAL Suddenly Peter grabbed center stage. My parents were out for dinner. I sat cross-legged on the couch doing homework and my brother, now twelve was hunched over a pile of clothes in the middle of Mum's Persian rug. "What are you doing?" He lit a match and moved 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 "I'll get you . . . Don't interfere!" Then he shrieked like a wounded animal. I stopped transfixed. "Help!" How could I be responsible for him? He was the embodiment of all that was horrifying in our family. How could we forget the Holocaust when Peter was both it's victim and incarnation.