Sue Smethurst - The Freedom Circus: One familys death-defying act to escape the Nazis and start a new life in Australia

When Sue Smethurst first sat down with her grandmother-in-law and asked how she survived the Holocaust, she was shooed away.

By that time Mindla was in a Melbourne Jewish nursing home with other survivors, her body ageing but her mind still razor sharp. Gradually, however, she agreed to tell her story, and much like Mitch Alboms Tuesdays with Morrie , Sues Mondays with Mindla began. The tale of how Mindla and her husband, Kubush Horowitz, a circus performer for the famous Staniewski Brothers, escaped from war-torn Poland with their young son and embarked on a terrifying journey through the USSR and Middle East to Africa and ultimately to safety in Australia, is nothing short of extraordinary.

Written by award-winning author and journalist Sue Smethurst, whose husband is Mindla and Kubushs grandson, The Freedom Circus is an epic story of courage, hope and humanity. It is also a profoundly moving account of one familys attempt to lovingly restore their past and of a surprising discovery that no-one could have predicted.

Here comes the princess, always dressed for a ball, the nurse affectionately said to my grandmother-in-law as we passed in the corridors of the Montefiore Jewish nursing home.

Mindla (pronounced Marnya ) Horowitz. The Princess of Montefiore. Her hair always perfectly set. Her lips always painted into a pretty red bow with such precision that Elizabeth Arden couldnt have done them better herself. Victory Red her favourite shade.

We headed into the dining room, where my husband was waiting. Youre getting fatty, she teased him, poking a manicured finger into his belly, but look at me, still bewdiful! The diamant clip in her hair shimmered as she turned her head to be admired.

My husband and I often joked that Nannas hearing might go or her eyesight fade, but vanity would be the last thing to leave her before she died.

It really wasnt vanity, though; it was dignity, the rawest essence of humanity, which she held on to with all her being. It was her way of saying to the world, Youve taken everything, but you will never take my pride.

It was many years after Id joined the Horowitz family that I began to learn Mindlas story. My husband, Ralph, would mimic Nanna swearing in Yiddish which her pet parrot did too, much to our amusement or relay a joke that his late Pop told when they were children.

Then one day he said to me, Ive told you their story, right?

Wrong.

He shared a skeleton version, recalling how Pop would tell his adored grandsons bedtime tales of grand circuses and colourful clowns. And of how the Nazis tried to kill them all.

He described rescuing his beautiful bride who was locked up in a Russian prison, and how they journeyed halfway around the world to eventually live happily ever after. But these were no fairy tales.

The journalist in me fired off a million questions as I was desperate to know the whole story, but sadly by then Pop was long gone, and the family consensus was that Nanna never talks about it so we dont ask in case it upsets her. Fair enough. I certainly didnt want her to relive any of the awful things Id heard.

As Mindla got older, though, and it was clear that our time with her was running out, my sense of desperation grew. It was important for our family, for my husband and our children to know who they were and where they came from, to understand what their grandparents and indeed great-grandparents endured, and how on earth they had escaped the Germans and made it to Australia.

At the risk of upsetting Nanna, conversations needed to be had.

When we visited the nursing home, we knew not to bring Nanna cakes or sweet treats because she wanted to keep her figure, but she loved cosmetics, especially the brightest of bright nail polish, and she loved to chat while painting her nails.

So one chilly autumn morning I armed myself with a supply of the fanciest new nail polish I could find, some notepads, a voice recorder and a rusty old tin of black-and-white photographs shed given her daughter-in-law Meg (my mother-in-law), to look after. And, inspired by Mitch Alboms Tuesdays with Morrie , my very own Mondays with Mindla began.

One by one wed go through the tatty images together.

Nanna, who is this? Id ask, and where was this picture taken? Always treading gently so as not to upset her.

Vhy do you vant to know? shed say in her thick Polish accent, expertly sweeping the magenta varnish across a nail.

At first, she was more interested in talking about how her beloved Collingvood was travelling on the AFL ladder and what her great-grandchildren were up to, but slowly Id draw the conversation back to her and begin to peel away the layers of her life.

And so it went on, week after week, month after month. Each visit followed the same pattern.

After the nails were set, wed head to the dining room for lunch, deftly avoiding the conga line of Zimmer frames.

At her table, we were always joined by four or five elderly women Mindla liked an audience and once my notepad appeared, wed go through a familiar routine.

Vhy do you vant to know? shed ask again. My story is nothing special.

Vat about her, and her, and her? she asked, pointing a sparkling fingertip towards each of the dear, weathered faces before me. We are all the same.

And then one day it clicked. Although the past was undoubtedly painful, Mindla wasnt necessarily re-traumatised by telling it; she just didnt think her story was anything out of the ordinary because so many of the people around her had an equally horrific story of escaping the Nazis. Of losing loved ones, of family they never saw again. Of lice-ridden bodies, of starvation. Of the stench of war and death. So much death. So much sadness.

Many of these precious elderly men and women with whom Nanna shared her final years had miraculously survived, beating Hitler at his evil game.

Despite her age and declining physical health, Mindlas mind remained razor sharp to the very end, and during the many hours we spent together she recalled her life to me in surprising detail. However, when she died in 2015 at the age of ninety-six, many words remained unspoken and questions unanswered. So I embarked on a years-long quest to piece together the jigsaw puzzle of her and Pop Horowitzs lives.

Many documents and records of lifes most precious moments births, deaths and marriages alike have been lost, bombed or burnt into oblivion, and I am therefore incredibly grateful to the genealogists, historians, academics and volunteers who have generously given their time and expertise to assist me during this process, particularly Krystyna Duszniak, whose inimitable knowledge and connections helped uncover material that not only confirmed Mindlas memories, but also helped us find a lost family.

As I did not have the luxury of interviewing Pop, who passed away in 1989, Ive relied on my interviews with Mindla and other family members, especially the grandchildren he adored, to recreate his story; plus photographs and interviews with his former television colleagues on GTV-9s Tarax Show in Australia. Among these people, I am notably grateful to the wonderful Ron Blaskett, who shared many memories of Pop before he passed away in 2018. Vale, Ron.