"Stories like those both dazzled and horrified the young Fox, but by the time she was nine she began to realize that certain parts of the tale didn't add up. I would say to her: Wait a minute, if you were born in 1935 and [the second world war] started in 1939, you would have been four, not 13,' Fox said. Whenever I would say that, she would say: No more questions.' Fox never got any clearer answers from her mother before she died of colon cancer in 1993."
"It wasn't until 2010 that she received her first glimpse of the truth. She was having tea with an elderly great-aunt who, by then, was suffering from dementia, a condition which, Fox believes, made her inadvertently blurt out: Your mother had a hidden identity, after which she darkly added: You're not going to be happy with what you find."
Marisa Fox grew up hearing dramatic wartime tales from her mother about being sent to Palestine at age 13 and joining a Jewish underground to fight the British. Discrepancies in dates and details prompted Fox to ask questions, but her mother repeatedly refused to answer. In 2010 an elderly great-aunt, affected by dementia, revealed that the mother's identity had been hidden and warned Fox she would be unhappy with what she found. Fox pursued relentless sleuthing over fifteen years and uncovered a truth more complicated, troubling, and sad than the original stories, later presenting her findings in a documentary titled My Underground Mother.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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