Growing up in Liverpool, Vivien Churney was sworn to secrecy about her mum's time in the French Resistance.
Though Sabine Specter had survived the war and had settled in Britain, she had been conditioned to stay silent about her time as a Jewish teenager working against the Nazis in occupied France during WWII. As a result, daughter Vivien could not tell anyone about her mum's remarkable story.
In the late 1930s, when she was a young girl, Sabine's family moved from Poland to the Belgian city of Antwerp. Belgium was invaded by the Nazis in May 1940 and Sabine spent her formative years in the occupied nation, before the family went into hiding in France.
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France had also been taken by Hitler's forces, so a teenage Sabine joined a youth French Resistance movement. She worked to move Jewish children through France's forests and mountains into the safety of neutral Switzerland.
Having joined the resistance at around 16 or 17 years old, Sabine worked with them throughout the war. At its conclusion, she worked as a translator at the Nuremberg Trials, which brought Nazi war criminals to justice.
Her next move was to the UK. Sabine met her husband Dr David Specter in London and the two then moved to Liverpool, where they had their family.
Settling in Calderstones, Sabine worked as a languages teacher and ran a teaching business. She was affected by survivor's guilt and she kept her past in the resistance movement a secret.
About this, Vivien told the ECHO: "While I was growing up, mum would talk to me about her formative years as a Jewish teenager in WWII. During these years, she realised she did have an inner strength.
"Although she survived, she always felt guilty for surviving, when so many others were killed.
"She kept her story hidden as a secret - she didn’t want anyone to find out. She was terrified that she might get into trouble, because that was the conditioning she had when she was a teenager.
"She told me bits about her life, moving around from different places - all the way through Belgium and then to France, where she joined this movement. It was very hard for her because she was only young and the impact it had on the rest of her life was traumatic, even though she wasn’t in the camps, the suffering she experienced and the guilt of surviving was incredible."
Sabine died in 1997. In 2021, Vivien - a former English teacher at Childwall's King David High School - wrote a novel based on her mother's experiences.
Called 'By The Scars We Share', the novel follows character Zoshia’s story. It is a fictionalised account of her mother’s experiences during WWII and attempts to capture Sabine's guilt at surviving the Holocaust.
About the novel, Vivien said: "I wanted people to know, but because she had sworn me to secrecy, I couldn’t write in a factual way, because I would have betrayed her. I wrote it as a novel, with all the information she had given me, and it has a character which is based on her. "
The book has been placed in Holocaust museums around the world, including Yad Vashem - the Holocaust memorial centre in Israel - and the US Holocaust Museum in Washington. This means a lot to Vivien, who said: "They (in Israel) told me that it’s an important contribution, so even when I pass away, others may read about her story and we can then teach future generations."
Ensuring memories of the Holocaust are survivors accounts remain in the public consciousness is vital for Vivien. She is the guest of honour at today's (January 27) Holocaust Memorial Day service at Liverpool Town Hall, which remembers the killing of six million Jewish people and millions of others by the Nazis and their collaborators during WWII.
Regarding the importance of commemorating the Holocaust, Vivien said: "We have to educate the younger generation about what happened. They are the world’s future and they should be aware so these things never happen again.
"At the Town Hall service, I’m going to be talking about my mother's life in connection with this year's theme of ordinary people doing heroic acts, which makes them extraordinary.
"For me, as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, it is extremely cathartic to be able to talk about her life to that group of people. I haven’t ever been able to do so. I think that’s why they’ve asked me to go, because it’s a real feeling, it’s true emotion.
"I think it’s very, very important that the Jewish community find a way of continually remembering what happened and to communicate that not just to the Jewish community but to the wider faiths. I think the idea of the service is an expression of what happened during the Holocaust, but it’s also a gathering together of all faiths to commemorate what happened and to make sure it doesn’t happen again."
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