b'BOOK OF MEMORY FOR HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAYEXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE FRANCOISE WINTONM y mother, her sister and her parents as well as many in her family were all saved by the luck of the draw, literally. They were living in Paris where my mother was born. When the war broke out, my grandmother, who was English, was visiting relatives in London with her two daughters. Her husband, who was French, was still in Paris.She decided to return with her daughters to be with her husband in Paris which turned out to be a very unwise decision. They spent the rest of the war fleeing the Nazis.Fate took a hand when they had to draw straws to see which members of the family would have to remain in Paris as they did not have sufficient transport for all of them to escape.The family that drew the short straw and had to remain behind were taken by the Nazis to Auschwitz and perished. My grandmother told me that they were wonderful cousins and their sons, one an artist and the other a pianist, were immensely gifted and talented.My grandmother managed to place my mother in a convent for her safety.My poor mother, who was only a little girl, told me that she was regularly beaten by an antisemitic nun and scrubbed raw till she bled. For anyone remembers my beautiful, wonderful mother, one can only imagine how traumatised she must have been.There were also extraordinary and wonderful stories of bravery by ordinary kind non-Jewish people.My mother and her sister were later taken in by a family who took huge risks by claiming that they were cousins of theirs from another village. They looked after my mother knowing that should they be discovered, they would be taken and shot.My mother was only a little girl during the war but the traumas she suffered certainly left their mark, understandably.I have been involved with the Holocaust Educational Trust for some years now in the hope that the wonderful work they do in furthering Holocaust education around all the schools in the UK will make sure that the Holocaust will never happen again.41'