The End of Amsterdam’s Hunger Winter "The ape brought us the food," Father said and added, after a pause, "and a book." This was followed, as always, by another pause, a longer one to let the opening sink in. "This is the first memory I am conscious of." It happens to be my first memory as well, for my memories do not extend beyond those of my father and my grandparents. After their experiences and their accounts of them none of my own experiences can claim any kind of validity. Moreover, I was constantly reminded to be grateful for the fact that in my life, the life of one born posthumously, I did not have to experience anything. Experience in my family was always twinned with necessity, it existed only as a package, as "having to experience;" if one was lucky, one was spared it.