Month: December 2013

Walter Kress’s Autobiography From the Holocaust to the Highlands.Cover designed by Christine Molden.

On Wednesday 27th of November, I met Walter Kress. In a café opposite the Cockfosters tube station the 83 year old Walter greeted me in a thick Scots accent from his adopted home-town of Aberdeen. In spite of having moved to North London in the early fifties, as I was reminded, he was a spiritual Scot, with heart decidedly still in the highlands. However this was not Walter’s most drastic relocation. At the age of eight, he left Nazi occupied Vienna for Britain.

Much to my disbelief, Walter was born an Austrian and a Jew. His parents fled with him in 1936 escaping a fate shared by many of his relatives; as described in his autobiography, From the Holocaust to the HIghtlands. It makes for a very interesting read, but how is it Walter’s story comes to appear on this blog? While still working on INFERNO, I was handed a couple of Walter’s books and a pile of correspondence between Walter and the Tivoli. Along with this pile of materials, the theatre manager asked me the question as to whether there was a possibility of making it into a play. A question best asked to Walter.

While at this stage there are a lot of possibilities and not too many specifics, there will no doubt be more posts relating to Holocaust to the Highlands. The meeting’s outcome was very positive and I left with a number more books and a new project.

As if I needed further reasons to revisit Aberdeen, it looks like I will be back in the Tivoli after all.