Our Town Mayor, Mary Dalton, made a very poignant visit to the Anne Frank Exhibition at Greenfield on January 27th – Holocaust Memorial Day. The Frank family were Jews and became victims of German persecution when they occupied the Netherlands in World War 2.
The family hid behind a bookcase in a building in Amsterdam where Anne wrote her famous diary. They were betrayed after 2 years and sent to Concentration Camps. Anne and her sister died in Belsen in 1945 just a few weeks before the camp was liberated.
Mary Dalton was born in Holland where she met her husband Reg who was an Army Tank Driver liberating her country at the end of the war. They married later and settled in the north east eventually retiring to Newton Aycliffe where Mary has served on the Town Council and been elected Mayor for the fourth time at the age of 90. She is a remarkable lady who enjoys serving the town she adopted in 1999.
Mary told Newton News the exhibition brought back fearful memories of the German occupation and the Nazi extermination of innocent Jews.
“We lived in fear with restricted movement and no means of communication and radios confiscated. Acts of sabotage resulted in local prominent people shot in reprisal. Teenage boys were taken away to work in German factories as slave labour.” said Mary.
Mary’s father risked being shot by hiding a teenage boy and neighbours radios in his loft.
Whilst the exhibition contained disturbing images for Mary it also brought back fond memories of her late husband and their life together in England.
