Memories

924: The Babies Not Sent To Auschwitz Jacques Weisser BEM I have absolutely no memory of any kind whatsoever about the war other than what I have been told...

925: Finding Something Good In Everything Ursula Gilbert My father always used to find something good in everything. He'd say: ‘Things are not so bad. We'll get through it.’ Until the very last day...

926: Dressing Up As A Gestapo Officer Betty Bloom The Gestapo were coming to arrest a Jewish baby in an orphanage. So my sister dressed up as a German officer and demanded this child...

927: The Wonderful Thing Ruth Rogoff My father was a courier for getting people out of Germany & over the border into Czechoslovakia, illegally. One day he was betrayed...

928: Goodness Kindness & Helpfulness Susan Pollack OBE I never exchanged a word with anyone. I was on my own, withdrawn within myself. If you'd been found talking to someone, you'd have been shot...

929: Fending For Myself Aged 9 Stephen Nagy I contracted scarlet fever. You had to go to an isolation hospital for six weeks. The fascist Hungarians took over. So, I was stuck in hospital...

930: Reunion After 22 Years In Siberia Dorothy Bohm My sister was one when I left. 22 years later I saw her again. We had no language in common. No memories in common, no childhood. Nothing...

931: Let Down Too Many Times Ruth Barnett MBE My mother appeared out of nowhere. Which was how I experienced it: the grown-ups made arrangements & then I was told...

932: A Cigarette For An Iron Cross Harry Weinberger A very young lieutenant in charge of us told me that the British Army will fight to the last alien, to the last foreign soldier...

933: Interned In Algeria Erna Klein One Arabic sentence helped a lot. It meant: ‘Are you drunk or whatever is the matter with you?’ That helped me out of a few difficult situations...

934: The Safest Place For Jews On Earth Kurt Wick Unfortunately, quite a few Jewish leaders said, ‘It's not a good country for you. Lots of crime, lots of opium, drugs, criminality...

935: Starting To Speak Mala Tribich MBE Talking about my experiences was a very gradual process. Before no one was talking & no one asked...

936: Why It's Necessary To Talk & Write Selma van de Perre I didn’t speak at all the first 30 years! To anyone or anything or myself. It was in 1975 with the opening of the Ravensbrück Memorial...

937: Eichmann Asking For Chopped Liver Fred Barschak On Saturday: elderly Jews scrubbing the pavements & marvellous shouts of ‘At last, Hitler’s found work for the Jews!'

938: Some Kind Of Darkness Eva Evans MBE I wanted to be a writer. But I never felt that I could write in English the way I could have done in German. So that was the end of that...

939: How To Bake A Stuffed Pike Fred Barschak The building still exists. Right next to the Prater, the great playground. But when I went back 25 years later I was disappointed...

940: Bringing The Alarm Clock Hanna Hemingway There's a reel in here [points to her head]. I can’t get it out of my mind. It's there. I just wish somebody would erase it...

941: Sharing The Sandwiches Henry Wuga MBE Ingrid & I got married on December 26 1944. In the middle of the war. We were in love & there was nothing to wait for. We were 20...

942: Father's New Woman John Hajdu MBE In each flat it was about 20 of us squeezed in. The area was guarded by the Arrow Cross Party: fascist & brutal. Hardly any food...

943: The Legless Side Of The Bed Laszlo Roman I was always told I mustn’t pee by the side of the road because someone might see that I am circumcised...

944: Cat Piddle In My Beer Rudolph Sabor It strengthened my belief: this cannot be forever. A cultured people like the Germans, would wake up any day. Total delusion...

945: Dad's Blood-Drenched Shirt Bea Green MBE I believe trying to protect your children by not telling them everything is a terrible thing. Because it makes them imagine things worse than reality...

946: Being Stateless Is An Advantage Benno Stern My father, by a great stroke of fortune, was made stateless by Poland because he’d fled the country. It worked to our advantage...

947: The End Of The Gallery Tom Heinemann My grandmother ran the gallery very successfully. Then she got arrested on some trumped up currency charges & put into prison...

948: Not Remembering My Emotions Hella Pick CBE I can still see myself arriving at Liverpool Street Station. But I can’t remember much about the journey. Just a blank. It’s shocking...

949: Liberation of Bergen-Belsen Susan Pollack OBE We were not human beings anymore. We were reduced to being animals - maybe more. That’s how it was. We were just – no feelings...

950: Liberation of Majdanek Rose Lebor At liberation I was four. All the executions, the beatings that they had to watch. My mother could never bring herself to tell me...

951: Passover in Lviv Lili Pohlmann MBE My mother and us two children went every Passover to Lviv to my grandparents, her parents, which was lovely...

952: Interned On My 16th Birthday John Goldsmith In 1940, on my 16th birthday, I was writing an English essay & looking through the window & I saw a policeman...

953: Slave Labour In Ravensbrück Selma van de Perre They transported us to Ravensbrück. Terrible. Screaming, shouting, dogs & whips. The dogs had the same clothes as the soldiers...

954: Arriving In Auschwitz Judith Steinberg We were put in a big school hall, we were all sitting on the floor with a rucksack. They said we are going to go to work...

955: 28 People Hiding In The Loft Rivka Reich We thought going to Auschwitz would be just hard labour. But my father was different. He thought we must escape...

956: Getting To Grips With It Gerti Baruch On Sundays in Vienna my father used to take me to Café Siller, along the Promenade. He used to read the paper...

957: How To Hide In Vienna Father Francis Wahle Letter-writing was timetabled: once a week. But from 1942 onwards there were no letters in reply because my parents went underground...

958: Discovering I Was Jewish John Dobai My parents thought that by changing their religion, it might produce some sort of saving, at least for me. But they were wrong...

959: The Invasion Of Hungary George Donath It was a Sunday. We went to my grandparents for lunch as usual. All of a sudden we see these black Mercedes drawing up in front...

960: The Awful Heydrich Reprisals Frank Bright Two Gestapo men came to our flat & asked where was I at the time. My mother had been indoors. I had just arrived from school...

961: Having My Revenge Willy Field I was a refugee from Nazi oppression. I wanted to have my revenge & I had my revenge. That was a wonderful feeling...

962: Speaking German With An English Accent Charles Danson I'd been the wireless operator for quite some time, so I said to my comrade ‘Let’s change over now’...

963: Experiencing Antisemitism Stella Shinder I had a little umbrella with red stripes. A little schoolmate of mine said, 'Is that the blood of German babies that the Jews are killing?'

964: The Next Thing Is We Were Gone Ruth Edwards I was on the train and saw my father crying. That made me cry. My mother said, perhaps she doesn't want to go. I said, yes, I do want to go...

965: Wounded Animals On The Farm Walter Kammerling It’s that type of work that put me off gardening. When you go on a cold, wet January & you get a big bag & are told to pick up...

966: I Thought You Were A Nazi Bea Green MBE There were two girls who often turned up with their Hitler Youth uniform. I stayed clear of them. One of them found me after the war...

967: Fitting In Hella Pick CBE The other pupils must have known I was a refugee. I became a Girl Guide & we were performing something & I was an African chief...

968: How To Talk Without Crying Ida Skubiejska Everybody was killed in Auschwitz: my parents, my sister, all my uncles, aunts & cousins. Absolutely everybody except my other sister & my cousin...

969: No One In My Situation Lia Lesser In 1939, my father married again in Prague. His wife was called Ola & she was a seamstress. When she came out of Auschwitz she got in touch...

970: Mother's Death At Our Liberation Mirjam Finkelstein By January 1945 there were rumours. People got quite excited. There was a wooden table, we had to walk past the camp doctor...

971: Equalising What Happened Dr Charlotte Feldman They used to demonstrate in the street below us. They used to shout, ‘Jews to Palestine!’ I had a very happy childhood...

972: Discovering My Brother Was Alive Mala Tribich MBE One day I got a letter from my brother Ben. We were in this stately home with all its beauty, I opened it, I read it & was so excited...

973: The Puzzle & The Blanks Jacques Weisser BEM I should've delved more into it, asking questions. But most of the time after the war I wasn't with my father...

974: How To Recover Susan Pollack OBE It took a long time for me to strengthen my own needs. I made a friend & she made a very big, deep impression on me. A shared nightmare...

975: Life In A Siberian Labour Camp Izak Wiesenfeld We were taken by lorries into the forest, to a huge barrack. The first speech: “You will never get out of here, here you will die..."

976: Coming To England Alone Aged 5 Hannah Wurzburger It's a bottomless pit. So absolutely appalling. Children are so vulnerable. Especially when they're separated from their family...

977: The Cruel Guardian Maria Ault My first guardians were fine. But when we were evacuated we stayed with a very, very, very, very bad person who used to hit us...

978: Hitler On The Loudspeakers Simon Jochnowitz I remember Hitler on all the loudspeakers everywhere. You couldn’t escape it. I remember being in bed & saying “Oh I can’t sleep, I can't sleep...

979: Sitting Through That Bronia Snow My parents always discussed everything. But not a word was spoken about my going to England. So I found myself one fine day...

980: Getting Streetwise Margot Harris When we were packing for England, the Gestapo came & went through all the cutlery drawers & took the silver cutlery & this & that...

981: 4th of the 4th, 1944 Jack Cynamon My first recollection is aeroplanes in the sky in Brussels. One morning the sky was full of aeroplanes. There must have been 60...

982: Not Dwelling On Things Gerta Regensburger I have no feelings & not many memories. I’m not a very retrospective person. It always amazes me that so many people remember...

983: The Struggle To Stay Alive Helen Aronson BEM We were taken to a disused prison. People were crying & hungry, not knowing anything. In the morning, Chaim Rumkowski came...

984: The Attack On Our School Albert Lester I was playing with a little car in the common room when there was this huge commotion, children were running, screaming...

985: Black Heart Outside The Flat Miriam Freedman It's difficult. Children feel very protected. Everything goes well. Then all of a sudden you see terrible things, like people disappearing...

986: The End of Łódź Ghetto Helen Aronson BEM In 1944, the ghetto was closed, everybody sent to camps. But the Germans decided: there's still some money to be made...

987: Father's Deportation Betty Bloom Unfortunately, at 6am, there was a knock on the door & two Gestapo officers marched in & arrested my father...

988: Getting Up From The Dust Ivor Perl BEM I was only 12 when I was taken to Auschwitz. I feel very, very hurt that I haven’t got many memories of my family...

989: Buying Sauerkraut & Soap Eva Mendelsson When you're a child, when nasty things happen, you remember. It makes a tremendous impression, even if you don’t quite understand...

990: The Shock Marianne Summerfield BEM My father was asked to report to Nazi headquarters. Stupidly, although my mother told him not to, he just walked into it...

991: My Ransacked School Ruth Jackson For the Nazis, you didn’t have to do anything wrong, you just had to be Jewish. On the day before Kristallnacht, the Nazi Youth went round...

992: Chickenpox Bridget Newman I was stuck. Then one day, the doorbell rang: a Gestapo. He came in, he was really rather nice. He had white hair & a big, white moustache...

993: Jews Not Welcome Ruth Jackson One thing stands out in my mind. I went shopping with my mother & saw a man in front of me with a swastika burnt into his skull...

994: Grass Snakes At The Beacon Lilly Lampert All I know: I wanted to come to England to be with my sister Gertie. I didn't know I wasn't going to see my parents again...

995: Father's Shop Harry Bibring BEM It was perfectly OK to try & obtain Jewish property by purchasing it at a peppercorn price...

996: How To Hide In Berlin Hans Danziger My father had nerves of steel. Before the war, Jews were obliged to put ‘Israel’ in front of their names. My father refused...

997: My Mother & Father Trude Silman MBE My mother is a question mark. I know she survived ‘til 1944 because we used to get the odd occasional 25-word Red Cross letter, but then it stopped...

998: Red Oaks Boarding School Ruth Jackson I was led upstairs to an empty dormitory & told that the very end bed was mine & I should have a bath & come down to tea. I felt miserable...

999: The Caretaker & His Daughter Miriam Freedman At night time, the caretaker used to bring us food. We sat there, never able to talk, no toys or books or anything. Things becoming all the time worse...

1000: Idzia Mala Tribich MBE Rumours started circulating that there's going to be a deportation. So people were in panic, trying to find ways of saving themselves...

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Memories

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