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I'm Lore Segal, and I have written a book called Other People's Houses.
I was 10 years old in 1938 when Hitler annexed Austria. We were thrown out of our apartment. We were then moved in with my grandparents in a nearby village of fishermen. And when my grandfather's house and shop were taken by the Nazis, we then had to come back to Vienna and lived with various cousins. I was lived with a school friend. There came the moment, came the day when my father picked me up from my friend and said that we were going to go. For a couple of days I was going to stay with them, my parents and my grandparents, who'd found an apartment together. And he said, you're going to England.
It had become clear to my parents that they had no means in sight of getting out of Austria. So they - my father insisted, my mother reluctantly agreed to let me go on the children's transport.
And I went to a party given by the students in this class. And somebody said to me, how did you get to America? And I began to tell the story, and everybody was silent and listening. And I thought, ooh, this is great. And that was really, that was the moment when I realised I had stories to tell.
You sit down at 8 o'clock every morning and you write until 1 o'clock. That's how you evolve as a writer. I know. I know what you're asking. I know what people want to know. But there is no answer except you sit down and bloody write. And the sentences doesn't work and you write it over and you write it over and then you write it over again. And then you write it over again. And then sometimes it works out. And then you have it. That's how you evolve as a writer.
I'm not surprised at anti-Semitism when it rises again. I have a emotional backpack at all times If I were pray - a praying person, I would pray that I'm not going to have to use it. But it will not surprise me. If I were, if this is - this is an interim, a fortunate interim in my head.
