Paul Oestreicher reflects on his life and his guardian angel St Michael: My father was born to secular Jewish parents in 1896. Recruited in 1914 like all his school mates and later a lieutenant in the Bavarian Horse Artillery, he survived the horrific Battle of the Somme. He began to reflect on the meaning of life – and death. Medical study followed. As a young paediatrician, driving through the forest in deep snow, visiting a sick child, he heard a voice, stopped his little two-seater car: Paul, go and be baptised. ... It was a bad time to be born. The world depression was at its height. Hitler had won the local election. Two years later he ruled the nation. My mother was no longer allowed to sing in public. She had married a Jew, considered a pollution of the German race. The only redeeming fact seemed to be my Michaelmas birth. I would learn one day what that might mean. ... TO CONTINUE CLICK ON PICTURE