Early Memories: First Friend Daniel Rosen

Daniel Rosen was my friend at Mrs Tucker's Kindergarten in Luanshya, Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) in 1949. I remember him as a kind and quiet lad, a bit shy - a small boy, a bit shorter than me, and wearing khaki shorts and shirt an a khaki pith helmet. He looked kind of cute.

We didn't know why but Mrs Tucker insisted on all children washing their hands after going to the toilet. My mother was also fastidious about cleanliness, so I'd been well drilled in hand-washing at home, so it was nothing new to me. Same for Daniel. I didn't know it then but coming from a Jewish household, the Rosen family probably stressed cleanliness even more than mine.

It may have been Daniel's undoing. Studies showed (later) that polio infection was transferred to taps and, despite children washing their hands, they touched the taps again to turn off the water - and picked up the infection.

Anyway, poor little Daniel was a victim of that pandemic that swept the world in 1948-49. I stood with my mother under some jacaranda trees outside what I suppose was the Luanshya synagogue during the funeral service for Daniel.

I had visited Daniel's grandfather's shop and ice-cream parlour with Daniel. His grandfather was

known as Pop Rosen and he always remembered me as 'Danny's friend.' Pop Rosen's shop was in or near the Boma (market) and whenever I visited his shop (it could be the one in the picture as it was a corner shop), usually to buy a comic, Pop Rosen would give me an ice-cream or some other treat.

There was still - despite the revelations about the Nazi concentration camps - a considerable amount of anti-Semitic 'talk' in the those post-war years. Sadly, 'dirty Jew' was a phrase I heard from time to time along with the derogatory use of 'Jew boy' to describe grown men. I couldn't understand it. I had no idea what being a Jew meant, but I knew that Daniel and Pop Rosen were Jews - and that personal experience made me react against the residual but ingrained anti-Semitism that still marked society during my childhood.

I was to learn much more about other prejudices throughout my boyhood and then later, as an adult, see governments pass legislation against such prejudices - and often injustices. I have also learned what are possible causes of such prejudice - and I have experienced the reverse-side of this phenomenon in what we call political correctness (and more of that in later blogs). I was brought up in a Christian home, and for much of my life followed Christian beliefs. Inevitably I think, and thankfully, through study of religion and history, I have moved one - and so have some parts of the wider Christian church, but I still feel ashamed in a way that the religion I followed for so many years was at least partly responsible for racism, bigotry against women and gays, and above all for anti-Semitism.