“I’m now going to write down some of the things which have happened
over the last few days. I’ve got such a short memory, I’m afraid, and
this is a way of making sure that I don’t forget.” These are the
opening lines of a diary that was written in 1945 by a young woman as she
gradually emerged from the hell of the concentration camps, hoping, against
the odds, to see her husband again. The woman’s name was Hana Pravda, and
she died in London on May 22 this year at the age of 92. Hana spent much of
the second half of her life in Britain, where she