I have always been fastidious in avoiding all things German. Any potential purchase could be secured only after ascertaining its provenance. Irrespective of beauty or practicality, an item manufactured in Germany was without hesitation confined to the ‘do not buy’ category. Even as a child I was aware that a wooden toy or perhaps a beautiful porcelain doll, one that I may have particularly coveted, but one that was German-made, would have to remain out of my reach. When, as an enthusiastic, aspiring pianist at the tender age of seven or eight, I discovered that the metronome, an essential piece of equipment for practice, was a product of superior German technology, I was aghast; an oversight had clearly taken place. As an adult I could not contemplate driving a Volkswagen, any more than I could don a pair of leather boots made in Germany, because a significant proportion of the population spread throughout that nation’s rural villages, communities and cosmopolitan cities—steeped in the grandeur of European culture—was responsible for lifelong emotional and psychological scars born out of the murder of my people.

Other than holding on to seething rage, alternating with a sense of overwhelming loss in the absence of murdered grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, the boycott of all things German was a given; no explanation required. My very sensible husband, not touched by the past in the same way and having grown up in a relatively carefree assimilated home in New York, acceded to my idiosyncrasies, as did my children. Acceptance of my position was implicit. It was, however, apparent that not everybody in my predominantly Jewish neighbourhoods of New York and later of Melbourne concurred. Many viewed the Mercedes as a prized acquisition, noted for its supreme efficiency, and certainly my American counterparts could only wax lyrical about the Krups coffee machine, the one that could produce the most flavoursome, aromatic brew. It is well known that the latter company contributed hugely to Nazi efforts and one can only wonder why the name was retained, as indeed was that of Volkswagen. Was there no shame, no consciousness of an association with a bureaucratic system premised on annihilation?