Sixty years after most of his family were wiped out in nazi concentration camps, a Woodford Green grandfather has finally been able to write about his extraordinary and moving life story.

Tony Hare, 86, from Sunset Avenue, exorcised the demons from his past by writing his recently-published autobiography which reveals the tragic circumstances which led to his parents and family being executed in nazi death camps.

In his autobiography, Spanning the Century, published by The Memoir Club, Mr Hare tells of how he escaped from German-occupied Moravia (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) by embarking on the infamous "Voyage of the Damned" bound for Cuba.

One of 1,000 Jews on the ill-fated SS St Louis, the 23-year-old, whose aunt had helped him obtain a permit for Cuba, was one of 250 lucky passengers allowed to embark in Britain on 21 June, 1939. The rest of the refugees met with certain death by being shipped back to Europe and ultimately the German concentration camps.

Tragically, Mr Hare could nor persuade his parents to leave their Czechoslovakian home and they both lost their lives in Auschwitz. Some 50 other members of Mr Hare's middle-class Jewish family also died during the Holocaust.

Unaware of his family's impending fate when he touched on British soil, the young man, who could speak fluent English, Czech , German and French, enlisted with the British Home Guard.

Recognising his linguistic skills, his superiors appointed him as an intelligence officer to interrogate high ranking prisoners of war in Britain and throughout Europe.

At the end of the war, Mr Hare returned to civilian life and followed a career in textiles and later hotels. He married his wife Jean, whom he met in Yorkshire in 1951, and the couple had four children and now have ten grandchildren.

However, despite enjoying a happy family life in England, Mr Hare is haunted by his tragic past and it has taken him decades to muster up the courage to relive his painful and horrific loss in his younger life.

Commenting on his decision to pen his autobiography, Mr Hare said: "It has taken me 60 years to be able to write about my experiences but I knew that somehow I had to do it.

"I had to tell the true story of what happened for everybody - for my family and my children, so that they will never forget what happened.

"Not only did my parents die in concentration camps but also about 60 members of our family. I felt it was necessary for me to be a witness to what happened. I heard about The Memoir Club and approached them with my idea and they were very interested."

Alarm bells about the uprising nazis started ringing for Mr Hare while he was carrying out National Service with the Czech Cavalry. He was given the devastating news that the balance of power against the Germans had seriously shifted and that no power could stop them from occupying the whole of central Europe at any given moment.

Mr Hare said: "I believed that the Germans would occupy the whole country not much later than a year's time - it turned out I was far too optimistic; they occupied after six months."

But sadly and frustratingly, the young soldier's prophetic visions were not shared by his parents. Mr Hare's father was nearing retirement age and had sold his malt producing factories, securing a lifelong pension, looking forward to enjoying the fruits of years of hard graft.

His mother stood by her husband and spoke little English or French. She also had many Czech and German friends and sincerely believed her family would be able to keep in the background and not be noticed.

Recalling his fruitless attempts at persuasion, Mr Hare said: "My parents did not share my opinion and this led to the only serious disagreement that I ever remember having had with them. In the end they suggested they should help me leave but they would stay until I had established myself abroad.

"At the time I was very upset about my failure to persuade them to my view and this failure led to the fact that they became part of the six million victims of the Holocaust.

"Today I understand better why it was so difficult for them to accept the real situation and why they could not free themselves of the ideas and values with which they had grown up and had lived their lives up to the moment."

It was while working as a prisoner interrogator that Mr Hare learned the devastating horror of the Holocaust, gaining direct information from German soldiers who had been at some stage drafted in to guard concentration camp prisoners.

Describing his shock at being told of his parents' fate, he recalled: "During 1946 I had been officially informed by the Red Cross that my parents had not returned and that the last official record was their arrival in the concentration camp Auschwitz in 1942 and they they must therefore be considered to have perished in that camp.

"This news was hardly unexpected after all the information I had been in contact with, particularly from the second half of 1944 onwards."

He added: "It was obviously a shock and I felt at that moment particularly alone in this world. In another way I felt very strongly that there was no change in my real relationship with my parents and this feeling has in no way changed in the half century that has elapsed since then."

A devastated Mr Hare was spurred into finding out all he could about the last years of his parents' lives and find out how many other family members or friends survived the Holocaust. He returned to Czechoslovakia at the end of 1946 on compassionate leave.

Reflecting on the evil regime and the people who planned the genocide, Mr Hare said: "This appears to have been done in a cold calculating way that defies any normal human reaction and way of thinking.

"If one met any of these planners they appeared very ordinary people, very often without any personal courage. I am not of course talking about the people on top who I never met. It was the 'ordinariness' of most of these planners of the mass murders that made the War Crimes Trials such a difficult process."

You can read all about Mr Hare's gripping lifestory through the hardback book, Spanning the Century (243 pages). It is not yet available in the shops but is available by post, fax or phone from The Memoir Club, priced £17.50 plus £2.50 postage and packing. Cheques should be made payable to The Memoir Club and sent to Whitworth Hall, Spennymoor, Co Durham. DL16 7QX. Tel 01388 811747 or fax on 01388 811363.

July 11, 2002 17:30