Benno Stern:

My father, by a great stroke of fortune, was made stateless by Poland because he’d fled the country. In Germany, he was stateless; he never took German citizenship. When Germany sent Polish Jews back to Poland he was not sent back, because he was stateless. In England, my father wasn't interned in the Isle of Wight because he was stateless. It worked to our advantage.

My father came to England with my sister & myself after Kristallnacht. My mother stayed on in Essen for a week. Why, I’ve never really been able to fathom. They thought it was safer to travel separately rather than together. She stayed on for a week.

The tragedy of that particular case was firstly, the Gestapo came for my father. He wasn’t there. They said, 'Where is he?' She said, 'He’s gone to Berlin to get visas. He won’t be back till Monday.” They said, 'If he’s not back Monday, we’ll take you instead.' She'd had the forethought to throw her passport out of the window into the courtyard.

They searched for the passport & said, 'Have you got a passport?' She said, 'No'. After they went she closed the flat up & left in the clothes she was wearing. Stayed with friends & then came on.

The other tragedy was: when he got to England, my father telephoned my mother's mother who was living in France to say that he & the children had arrived safely. So my grandmother said, 'Where’s Esther?'

He said, 'She’s on her way. She’s OK.'

Her mother said, 'No I don’t believe you. You never would have left Germany without Esther.' And she had a stroke while he was on the phone to her, & she never spoke again after that. She died a little while later. Funny what you remember as a child. Our local rabbi in London came to see my mother & broke the news to her. I can remember my mother crying. Sad days. A tragedy.

But my mother did arrive. She had quite a horrendous journey in the train. She only had 10 marks, nothing else. At the border the police collected all the passports & didn’t return them until the very last moment. People were shouting & screaming: 'Where are our passports?' In the end, they threw all the passports through the open train window. People were treated very badly.

They took her money; she arrived penniless. But she didn’t have much anyway.

I remember our journey. We left Hachestraße at dawn. Light was just breaking. I had a particular comforter blanket. The station was immediately opposite our flat so we had a very short walk.

The train journey is vague but I remember the ferry. I was one of the few people who was not sick. The sea was rough and I saw everyone else being sick.

We then arrived by car to Ealing, in the evening. I remember lights. My uncle had a huge dog which I now know was a border collie. I was so frightened of this dog, whose name was Dinkie. I was so scared. I could only speak German. They offered me some lemonade which I’d never seen before. Coloured lemon lemonade. That was what I remember.

Benno Stern

Memories

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