<p>Jane Messer grew up with a loving father who never really understood why as a child his mother left him and his older sister at a boarding school, so she decided to find out the full story and prove that he was in fact, loved.</p><p>Her father Michael was born in Berlin in the years between the two world and to escape Nazi Germany he was sent to live in England as a child.</p><p>There were a few fleeting visits but then Michael didn’t see his mother again for another 13 years and he always said she never loved him.</p><p>As Jane grew older and became a mother herself, she knew there had to be more to Bella’s story and so she went on the trail from pre-war Berlin to Tel Aviv to Melbourne, to try to understand the choices made in extraordinary circumstances. </p><p>Further informationJane Messer's family memoir is called Raven Mother </p><p>This episode of Conversation explores family history, the Holocaust, Nazi Germany, suicide, boarding school, Palestine, the Nakba, Berlin, World War 2, immigration, the British Mandated Palestine, memoir.</p>