Helen Topor
Neither King Nor Saint
2022
After my mother died, I brought home a tub of photos and documents she had collected. It was a Pandora's box. When I finally opened it, I discovered a photo of my father. I peered into his face, feeling the tide of many questions rushing into me. Why did you change so much? I wanted to ask. Why did you bring shame on our family and make me betray you three times?
Memories of you as a violent man pushed aside my earliest memories of loving and admiring you. I trusted you. You were proud, playful and strong. You sang, danced and made your children laugh. Why did you stop being that man? How did you, a Polish enemy alien, have such an enduring hold on my German mother's affections and not on mine? Why did Mutti divorce you? Who were you really? Could I have been wrong about you all this time? I no longer wanted to live with the long legacy of shame. Surely there was more to the man who caused such turbulence in our family than I had come to believe. Could I, as an adult, get to understand him better - and maybe forgive him? Is it possible for a child to redeem a parent, and in turn be redeemed? I felt ready to probe the past for the missing pieces that could help me know my father better, to explore the wartime and migrant experiences that destroyed him and our family.
It was time to reckon with that monolithic legacy of shame constructed by the official view of my father as 'mad and dangerous', to chip away at it, and uncover a deeper, more nuanced truth, to see and grasp the shape of it, to hold onto it. Memories persisted, demanding interrogation. I no longer wanted the authorities to have the last word on my father. And I needed to heal.
About the Author
Helen Topor is a Canberra-based author, freelance editor and mentor. A former lecturer at the Canberra Institute of Technology, she is a Voluntary Guide at the National Gallery of Australia. Her publications include Outdoor Games for Today’s Kids (2017) and Discovering Vermeer: A Passionate Quest (2018). She has presented conference papers on comparative education, multicultural education, training opportunities in editing, and the interiority of Johannes Vermeer’s female subjects. Her articles on artists, exhibitions, and artworks at the National Gallery of Australia have been published in the NGA’s News and Views.
