“I had no experience in any kind of writing. I mean none,” Allan told me. He was facing end-stage kidney disease, and his father’s story wasn’t going to stop with him.
The Story That Shaped His Family
It was the eve of World War II, not long after Kristallnacht, and Allan’s father was sent by his family from Germany to safety in England at age 16. He went from British internment camps to serving in the British Army’s Pioneer Corps and later the Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. He shipped out to India and spent three years there. Sadly, the Nazis killed his family at the Sobibor extermination camp.
Allan’s father put his head down and moved forward. He married another survivor and went from England to Connecticut to Rochester, NY. They created a family built on the value of “paying it forward” to others.
Allan’s parents didn’t talk about their past. But their past had inevitably shaped their children. Fifty years after his parents survived the war, Allan and his wife adopted Alma, a Bosnian teenager fleeing another genocidal war.
It was an enormous, multi-generational story. Allan wanted his kids and grandkids to have it.
The Breakthrough: Writing One Small Segment Per Week
In January, Allan began writing using our Storykeeping method. He crafted one segment of his dad’s story each week, no more than two pages long.
We suggest starting with a family object, so Allan wrote about the day his dad showed him his Nazi identification card. “I was shocked to see this cloth billfold, neatly folded in quarters, with a large letter ‘J’ on the cover. He had kept this hidden from us for fifty years.”
Allan had many unanswered questions and wrote them down. Eventually, he understood they were part of the family story, too.
Each week, Allan captured a little piece of his dad’s story and connected the dots in his own. “I reflected on my life and put it in the context of my history and how I was raised. I saw my parents and grandparents alive in my life.”
“Writing my family story put my life in perspective,” Allan reflected. “It was one of the most important things I’ve done in my life.”
The Payoff: A Family Gathering to Hear the Story
By April, Allan had finished writing and organized a Zoom call with his kids, grandkids, extended family, and friends scattered around the world. He shared his father’s story of World War II and his own story of adopting Alma during the Bosnian War. “Alma’s family in Bosnia was there. My 15-year-old grandson was riveted.”
Allan’s brother, Julian, decided to write their mother’s story. Julian completed the Rayburn family story with us the following winter.
“Writing my family story put my life in perspective,” Allan reflected. “It was one of the most important things I’ve done in my life.”
Discover how Allan began writing his father’s story by jotting about his father’s Jewish Identity Card From Nazi Germany.
