Lia Lesser came to Britain from Prague on a Kindertransport in 1939:

In 1939, my father married again in Prague. His wife was called Ola & she was a seamstress. When she came out of Auschwitz after the war she got in touch with me. I didn't remember her at all.

I found it so strange because I just didn't know her. I block some things out. But I wasn't going to argue.

She came out of Auschwitz on a stretcher. She was very poorly when she first came out. When she was better she got in touch. Evidently a soothsayer in the camp told her: ‘You'll be all right after the war because you'll be able to go & see Lia.’ That's what she told me. So I only know what she told me. But I don't remember her. She remembered me.

She was a very nice lady, very accomplished. I've got all sorts of lace, things she crocheted.

When I travelled to Britain I had two big suitcases & a label around my neck & I had a little pillow, a little blue pillow, just a tiny one, to put your head on. That's all I had.

The suitcases contained just clothes. I wasn't a very dolly person, so I didn't have any dolls. I brought my schoolbooks & school report, & a little pendant of Moses giving the Law on Mount Sinai & a photograph of each of my parents but I didn't yet have the other photographs & the jewellery I got when I stayed in Prague with my stepmother Ola many years later.

We spent 14 days going round offices & banks in Prague. You couldn't get your things back & you had to give money. It was a dishonest society.

Then Ola said ‘Look, she's going back to England tomorrow. Please can we have her things?’ So eventually I, in a Prague bank, I got what belonged to my family, so I've got them to this day. But it was proper jewellery. People don't wear proper jewellery now.

I found out what happened to my parents soon after the war. By letter. I presume they must have been gassed but nobody’s actually told me. Before I used to correspond with them. I've got some of the letters. Then we got letters through the Red Cross. They stopped in 1942.

My guardian, Mouse, was very good. She always said ‘I’m not going to steal your mother’s affection. That is your mother’s.’ A very kindly lady. She didn't think that she’d keep me forever. She hoped she wouldn't have to keep me forever. She used to say, ‘If your parents are alive...’

I was staying with her elder sister, Glad, in Banstead, Surrey. And I opened- I think it was called the Picture Post magazine. The pictures in that were, [sighs] death camps, all the pictures. And, oh, [sighs] I couldn't eat certain things after that. I don't think that it really hit home exactly how dreadful things were. It’s hard, hard to think that nothing’s been learnt from the Holocaust, nothing.

Well, it’s something you just [sighs] had to accept. You felt helpless to do anything about it. You just– I've always wanted to help people, whatever their circumstances, it doesn't matter what race or colour or anything else.

And my guardian, she had seven sisters & a brother. I was always treated as one of the nieces & we're in touch still, & the next generations. But it was very difficult because I couldn't really talk to anybody. There wasn't anybody else in the same situation as me. But everybody was extremely kind. I made lifelong friends.

You just have to do the best you can. I remembered my parents from their photographs but apart from that you could only imagine. It’s hard for a child to think that you haven't – I believe my father gave his last bit of bread for a cigarette. That's what Ola said.

Banstead

Memories

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