Quirk Of Fate Memories 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... Read Full Memory 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... Read Full Memory Previous Experience Next Experience

Austria Vienna Memories 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!' 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... 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... 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... 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... Previous Location Next Location

HMT Dunera Memories 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... Read Full Memory Previous Experience Next Experience

941: Sharing The Sandwiches Henry Wuga MBE Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Henry Wuga MBE came to Britain on a Kindertransport, settled in Glasgow and became a chef: Ingrid & I got married on December 26 1944. In the middle of the war. We were in love & there was nothing to wait for, not really. We were 20. We had the wedding in the synagogue & the function in Ingrid’s parents’ flat. A very nice party. I got one of the chefs from the hotel to do the cooking while we were at the synagogue &, well, again, we tried to do it differently. The menu is still hanging up out in the hall. We delivered a special menu. I was determined. Food was always important, just the presentation. I made bombs, ice cream bombs, yes. I had shapes, you filled in the ice cream but then you have to freeze it. Now we had no deep freezers or anything like that in these days. On the day of the wedding, I went down to the local Italian shop, asked his permission to use his ice cream machine, filled our bath with ice & sea salt to make it into a saline solution, & froze the bombs in there. Crazy, but that gave us a lot of pleasure. A very nice wedding. Just a few months before the wedding I was sent by my employers, a big catering firm in Glasgow, to Abbotsford, the home of Sir Walter Scott, to cater the wedding for his great-great-granddaughter. I was very greatly honoured at age 20 to be sent to arrange this wedding. I had tremendous help from the local baker, who supplied me with staff, with sandwiches. The gamekeeper’s wife happened to be French, so she came & helped me in the kitchen for a family dinner. It was war time, but being on a private estate, consommé, lobster, pheasant, partridge, was not a problem. It was for me a wonderful experience. They were very kind & this baker eventually said to me, ‘When you are getting married in December we will do the wedding cake.’ He sent me a 3-tier wedding cake but you wouldn’t recognise it. It’s silver in colour because the outside was made of these cake boards in papier maché. You were allowed to bake cakes but you were not allowed to ice them. That was the war time restriction. But it was very generous of this man to send me a cake. Henry met his future wife Ingrid at a refugee club: It didn’t have a name. We just called it the centre, was a little house called ‘the house on the hill’ in Sophie Hall Street, where the dental hospital is now. It was financed by the trade union movement in Glasgow. We learned a lot about music, we had lectures, we had meetings on a Saturday afternoon. On Sundays we went for rambles. There were discussion groups & helping the war effort. We founded a group singing Czech & Austrian songs for Mrs. Churchill’s aid to Russia fund. We toured Scotland, performing in the Usher Hall, in St. Andrew’s Hall, in the music hall in Aberdeen to raise money for Mrs. Churchill’s aid to Russia fund. We were fairly left-wing in climate, 1st of May march, etc. Ingrid's father warned her, ‘Don’t get involved in left-wing affairs.’ But luckily she did. It was so egalitarian because we all had no money. You did what you could. On a Saturday we went for a ramble. You made yourself a sandwich or something, but, some people had more money than others. So you threw your sandwich in the middle in a cloth, & then took a dip & had to eat whatever came out. Nobody should suffer from not having enough money to put whatever they want in their sandwich. The club was great. We made great friends that lasted many, many, many years. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Henry Wuga MBE's interview with Dr Anthony Grenville for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, October 2004 • Learn More → Henry Wuga MBE Food Kindertransport Refugee Life Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Scotland Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

1939: Erna Klein, born in Oels, is working as a nanny in Algiers. During my stay in Algeria I was interned three times, because of my nationality. The first time was immediately after the outbreak of war, I was sent to Sidi Bel Abbès, where the Foreign Legion was. I was the only woman interned there. A few men of German & Austrian nationality were there too. Quite a few Italians. I was put into the hall, on a sack with straw & watched over by an Arab Tireurs soldier with a bayonet. I asked the French officer could I please have the key to lock myself in. He was kind enough to give me the key. After a few days I caught gastroenteritis & the porters were so very, very kind, they asked the French officers could they give me a room in their flat & a bed, & look after me, & that was granted. After I got better I was sent back to Mostaganem. The second time I was interned for three months high up in the Atlas mountains in a place, a very small place called Ben Chicao. An ancient orphanage. There were people from Germany, Italy, Austria, Poland, Russia. I was given the infirmary to look after & looked after the sick people. There were mothers with babies there & I had to distribute the milk, to the babies. They kept pigs outside & a sow had lots of piglets & couldn’t feed them all so I had to bring them the leftover milk accompanied by a soldier carrying bayonet. He wanted to be fresh. Fortunately, before in Mostaganem, a Spanish lady had taught me a smattering of Arabic. So when this Tireur was not very respectful one Arabic sentence I had learned helped me a lot. It meant: ‘Are you drunk or whatever is the matter with you?’ That helped me out of a few difficult situations. Therefore it’s a sentence I won’t forget. I was in Ben Chicao when the Germans took over Paris. The Germans there heard the radio & knew & they celebrated & it was all very sad. There were a few Jewish girls as well. They did not live in Algeria. One of them was arrested because she was in the troupe of Mistinguette, a famous French dancer. They came from South America, their ship landed in Algiers & she was arrested. There were a few entertainers. We all slept in the same dormitory so as not to be with the Germans who were antisemitic. Then I was liberated again. The last time, I was arrested & brought to a hotel in Oran by the American army with some Italians & Germans again of course but that was pretty wonderful. Because for years we had been cut off from France & there was scarcely anything to eat in Algeria except for grapes & melons & figs. But while we were interned by the Americans we had proper food, even chocolate! I showed them some letters I got from my parents from England. So they told me that I could go. But I still had to go back to Mostaganem which was a very long way away from Oran & again I was arrested & had no money. But fortunately we were arrested in a hotel where we had to sleep three in a bed, I said ‘How am I going to go to Mostaganem?’ There was an Arab wholesaler of vegetables who had come with his lorry to buy his wholesale vegetables in Oran. He said ‘I’ll give you a lift back on my lorry.’ So I got back to where I had my home. There was a typhoid epidemic. I joined the Free French Army as a nurse. It was 1944. I felt I was alive & ought to do something for France. Had I been a man I would have gone into the Foreign Legion, but that wasn’t open to me. 933: Interned In Algeria Erna Klein Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Previous Memory Next Memory 933: Interned In Algeria ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Erna Klein Read Full Text Previous Memory Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Erna Klein's interview with Dr Rosalyn Livshin for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, March 2003 • Learn More → Erna Klein Algerian Internment Food Liberation Nerves of Steel Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Algeria See Locations Full Text 1939: Erna Klein, born in Oels, is working as a nanny in Algiers. During my stay in Algeria I was interned three times, because of my nationality. The first time was immediately after the outbreak of war, I was sent to Sidi Bel Abbès, where the Foreign Legion was. I was the only woman interned there. A few men of German & Austrian nationality were there too. Quite a few Italians. I was put into the hall, on a sack with straw & watched over by an Arab Tireurs soldier with a bayonet. I asked the French officer could I please have the key to lock myself in. He was kind enough to give me the key. After a few days I caught gastroenteritis & the porters were so very, very kind, they asked the French officers could they give me a room in their flat & a bed, & look after me, & that was granted. After I got better I was sent back to Mostaganem. The second time I was interned for three months high up in the Atlas mountains in a place, a very small place called Ben Chicao. An ancient orphanage. There were people from Germany, Italy, Austria, Poland, Russia. I was given the infirmary to look after & looked after the sick people. There were mothers with babies there & I had to distribute the milk, to the babies. They kept pigs outside & a sow had lots of piglets & couldn’t feed them all so I had to bring them the leftover milk accompanied by a soldier carrying bayonet. He wanted to be fresh. Fortunately, before in Mostaganem, a Spanish lady had taught me a smattering of Arabic. So when this Tireur was not very respectful one Arabic sentence I had learned helped me a lot. It meant: ‘Are you drunk or whatever is the matter with you?’ That helped me out of a few difficult situations. Therefore it’s a sentence I won’t forget. I was in Ben Chicao when the Germans took over Paris. The Germans there heard the radio & knew & they celebrated & it was all very sad. There were a few Jewish girls as well. They did not live in Algeria. One of them was arrested because she was in the troupe of Mistinguette, a famous French dancer. They came from South America, their ship landed in Algiers & she was arrested. There were a few entertainers. We all slept in the same dormitory so as not to be with the Germans who were antisemitic. Then I was liberated again. The last time, I was arrested & brought to a hotel in Oran by the American army with some Italians & Germans again of course but that was pretty wonderful. Because for years we had been cut off from France & there was scarcely anything to eat in Algeria except for grapes & melons & figs. But while we were interned by the Americans we had proper food, even chocolate! I showed them some letters I got from my parents from England. So they told me that I could go. But I still had to go back to Mostaganem which was a very long way away from Oran & again I was arrested & had no money. But fortunately we were arrested in a hotel where we had to sleep three in a bed, I said ‘How am I going to go to Mostaganem?’ There was an Arab wholesaler of vegetables who had come with his lorry to buy his wholesale vegetables in Oran. He said ‘I’ll give you a lift back on my lorry.’ So I got back to where I had my home. There was a typhoid epidemic. I joined the Free French Army as a nurse. It was 1944. I felt I was alive & ought to do something for France. Had I been a man I would have gone into the Foreign Legion, but that wasn’t open to me. 933: Interned In Algeria Erna Klein Edited from Erna Klein's interview with Dr Rosalyn Livshin for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, March 2003 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

Asked To Leave School Memories 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!' Read Full Memory 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... Read Full Memory 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... Read Full Memory 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... Read Full Memory Previous Experience Next Experience

931: Let Down Too Many Times Ruth Barnett, 3rd foster home, East Harting Farm, West Sussex, 1949: Ruth Barnett MBE Read Full Text Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Home All Memories About Menu Close ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Ruth Barnett MBE's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, November 2016 • Learn More → Ruth Barnett MBE Betrayed Foster Family Kindertransport Reunited Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts England See Locations Full Text Ruth Barnett, 3rd foster home, East Harting Farm, West Sussex, 1949: I was 14 & still there & planned to leave school—you could leave at 14—& stay on the farm & raise animals & be a farmer. I'd have been so happy doing that. Then my mother appeared out of nowhere. Which was how I experienced it: the grown-ups made arrangements & then I was told. I think the Hoskings wanted to keep me. I think they had plans to adopt me & they took the view that four years after the war how could my parents want me if they'd left it four years. They didn't understand that Europe was absolute chaos. I mean, England was pretty chaotic, because it was so badly bombed, but all the structures were still in place in England. It was not the sort of chaos in Europe where waves of displaced people were on the move. It was a long time before I understood the chaos preventing my parents making contact earlier. But another 4 years in England postwar made it impossible for me. At 10 I'd probably have settled down after a while. But at 14 there was absolutely no way I could go back to Germany. Ruth & her brother Martin had last seen their parents in 1939 before their Kindertransport. Martin & I had to meet her at the station. I remember not knowing what to do & Martin telling me she was our mother & we should be happy to see her. Then he couldn't face her either. He looked away & was ill at ease once she arrived off the train. It was an impossible situation. She didn't speak any English & I didn't know any German. Very, very painful for everyone. Furious arguments with Mrs. Hosking. And my mother went back to Germany without me. Which must have been terrible for her, particularly as she didn’t know any English. As soon as she got back to Germany, my father served a court order on my foster parents. And my foster mother, who'd said I was one of the family, had to take me to Germany & leave me there. The final betrayal. The one person I thought was really there for me had to leave me. In my head I knew that she had to. At 14 I knew what a court order was. But in my guts, it was the final betrayal. I decided trying to be good & please people had never worked. I turned very nasty. I gave my parents a hell of a time, which I'm not proud of. They tried to make me go to school. They fixed up art lessons for me. They fixed up a horse for me to ride. I mean, they did everything they possibly could, but it had no chance of working. My mother never talked about her war experience. I think she was the most severely traumatised of the four of us. I never, ever saw my parents completely relaxed & happy after the war, together. They weren't capable of it. They'd experienced just so much tension & fear. There’s an alertness when you’re in danger. I don’t think that alertness ever left them. I was being such a nasty beast. I refused to do anything I was asked to. If they mentioned the word ‘school’ I was out the door & didn't come back till the early hours of the morning. My parents realised that it was impossible & a big mistake very quickly. They said I could go back to England if I promised to stay at school & come for holidays. I was desperate to get back to England so of course I promised. But it took a year to get the necessary documents. I went back to the family & my school. But I felt betrayed that they'd taken me to Germany. I couldn't trust anyone. But I could trust the animals. I got the emotional support & the comforting from animals that I couldn't accept from people. They’d let me down too many times. 931: Let Down Too Many Times Ruth Barnett MBE Edited from Ruth Barnett MBE's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, November 2016 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

Brussels 1942: 6-month-old Jacques Weisser BEM is hidden in children's homes & hospitals. His father is forced to become an Organisation Todt slave labourer. His mother is deported to Malines & murdered in Auschwitz. I should've delved more into it, asking questions. But most of the time after the war I wasn't with my father. When I was he never wanted to talk about it. 'It was what it was, we survived, we made a life for ourselves'. That's what he'd say. He refused to be interviewed by the Shoah Foundation. Maybe being on camera wasn’t his thing. My father was already gone when my mother was taken in the street. The question is, who was I with during that period? Who looked after me for a few days before putting me in this Meisjeshuis [children's home]? It’s a blank. Nobody can tell, nobody knows & I have no memories. There's nobody to ask any more & no records. In my understanding my given name would be 'Salomon Weisser'. Subsequently 'Jacques' became my nom de guerre but in the Jewish orphanage, they misspelt my name & got my birth of date wrong. That's why the research has been so hard. In Belgium there were a lot of children that were somehow saved in one shape, form or another. There was quite a decent underground. A lot of them were Jewish communists, including my uncle, Chaim Weisser. He was responsible for Charleroi. His son was also a hidden child. In August 1944 German officials decided to send the last orphans to Malines. The Belgian resistance hid the children instead. Jacques was hidden in the Ardennes with a boy called Bill. Many years later I found the lady who was involved in hiding in me in the Ardennes. I found her name, Mme Wittamer. I managed to make an appointment to see her but she never turned up. I subsequently learnt that she’d married & never told her husband that she’d hidden a child during the war. My father says that when he found me she didn't want to give me up. A lot of them didn't. She wanted to keep this child. He never talked about her either, which again I found subsequently difficult to understand because it was the last step, if you like, in the life story of being alive. The Resistance put me with her in the Ardennes. And, for whatever reason, no information of any kind from any of the family, apart from the fact that they may have met her once. Not from my father, not from my stepmother, not from anybody. That in a way hurts because that would have been [sighs]—it would have been good. To close the circle I suppose. I only know her first name because there is a card that was found. Her name was Wittamer. For many years I had photos of me, I knew it was me but where they came from, where they were taken, I had no idea. One of them gives my name on the back of one of the photos: 'souvenir de Jacqui'. Who wrote it, no idea. There's so many different layers—the puzzle, you know, trying to find the bits & pieces, it’s complicated, complex. Jacques' father was liberated by US soldiers in the forest of Waldenburg. He came to Brussels. In those days “the place to go to” when you came back was the station, always the railway station. There he met somebody he knew who told him: don't bother going to Antwerp, nothing there for you anymore, your wife died, your brother has survived. We believe your son is alive. So my understanding is he found where I was, through the Red Cross. He found me, he says in Virton but maybe in Esch-en-Raphaël, & brought me back to Brussels, met his wife-to-be, my stepmother, & his life carried on from there, as did mine. 973: The Puzzle & The Blanks Jacques Weisser BEM Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Previous Memory Next Memory 973: The Puzzle & The Blanks ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Jacques Weisser BEM Read Full Text Previous Memory Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Jacques Weisser BEM's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, December 2023 • Learn More → Jacques Weisser BEM Close Family Murdered Finding Out Hidden Child In Hiding Never Finding Out Not Remembering Staying With Strangers Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Belgium See Locations Full Text Brussels 1942: 6-month-old Jacques Weisser BEM is hidden in children's homes & hospitals. His father is forced to become an Organisation Todt slave labourer. His mother is deported to Malines & murdered in Auschwitz. I should've delved more into it, asking questions. But most of the time after the war I wasn't with my father. When I was he never wanted to talk about it. 'It was what it was, we survived, we made a life for ourselves'. That's what he'd say. He refused to be interviewed by the Shoah Foundation. Maybe being on camera wasn’t his thing. My father was already gone when my mother was taken in the street. The question is, who was I with during that period? Who looked after me for a few days before putting me in this Meisjeshuis [children's home]? It’s a blank. Nobody can tell, nobody knows & I have no memories. There's nobody to ask any more & no records. In my understanding my given name would be 'Salomon Weisser'. Subsequently 'Jacques' became my nom de guerre but in the Jewish orphanage, they misspelt my name & got my birth of date wrong. That's why the research has been so hard. In Belgium there were a lot of children that were somehow saved in one shape, form or another. There was quite a decent underground. A lot of them were Jewish communists, including my uncle, Chaim Weisser. He was responsible for Charleroi. His son was also a hidden child. In August 1944 German officials decided to send the last orphans to Malines. The Belgian resistance hid the children instead. Jacques was hidden in the Ardennes with a boy called Bill. Many years later I found the lady who was involved in hiding in me in the Ardennes. I found her name, Mme Wittamer. I managed to make an appointment to see her but she never turned up. I subsequently learnt that she’d married & never told her husband that she’d hidden a child during the war. My father says that when he found me she didn't want to give me up. A lot of them didn't. She wanted to keep this child. He never talked about her either, which again I found subsequently difficult to understand because it was the last step, if you like, in the life story of being alive. The Resistance put me with her in the Ardennes. And, for whatever reason, no information of any kind from any of the family, apart from the fact that they may have met her once. Not from my father, not from my stepmother, not from anybody. That in a way hurts because that would have been [sighs]—it would have been good. To close the circle I suppose. I only know her first name because there is a card that was found. Her name was Wittamer. For many years I had photos of me, I knew it was me but where they came from, where they were taken, I had no idea. One of them gives my name on the back of one of the photos: 'souvenir de Jacqui'. Who wrote it, no idea. There's so many different layers—the puzzle, you know, trying to find the bits & pieces, it’s complicated, complex. Jacques' father was liberated by US soldiers in the forest of Waldenburg. He came to Brussels. In those days “the place to go to” when you came back was the station, always the railway station. There he met somebody he knew who told him: don't bother going to Antwerp, nothing there for you anymore, your wife died, your brother has survived. We believe your son is alive. So my understanding is he found where I was, through the Red Cross. He found me, he says in Virton but maybe in Esch-en-Raphaël, & brought me back to Brussels, met his wife-to-be, my stepmother, & his life carried on from there, as did mine. 973: The Puzzle & The Blanks Jacques Weisser BEM Edited from Jacques Weisser BEM's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, December 2023 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

939: How To Bake A Stuffed Pike Fred Barschak Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close During the Anschluss, Fred Barschak's father Aaron ran the Restaurant-Hotel Barschak in Vienna's Leopoldstadt: The building still exists. Right next to the Prater, the great playground. But when I went back 25 years later I was disappointed. It's lost all its charm. At the time there were maybe 40 kosher restaurants in the area. Three different categories. Some had very good food & were hardly kosher at all. Some were kosher but the food was... ‘unessbar’: uneatable. One or two managed to combine good food & kashrut, & ours was one of them. Us & Schreiber: so kosher that when tens of thousands of Galician Jews fleeing the Russian armies in WW1 came through Vienna, the one thing they knew if they wanted to be kosher, they came to either Schreiber or Barschak. Neugroschl may also have been kosher. I’m not 100% sure. Restaurants in Vienna & all over the continent stayed open on Shabbat. This is how. The staff were non-Jewish on Shabbat. The method was used all over Vienna & in Berlin & Lemberg in Poland. We had a regular clientele, known as the Stammgasts. We had markers, I remember them. 8 sides, bronze & numbered. Every table had a number. If Mr Cohen came in & had a meal on Shabbat, there was a box—there were maybe 80 boxes—& a little marker was put into that box & that meant that on Sunday, when father did the accounts, he'd send out a bill to Mr Cohen whose address he knew. Or in fact he didn’t have to because Mr Cohen usually either paid before or afterwards. As to the casual visitors, my father always took a chance. If somebody wanted a meal on Shabbat, he got it even if he hadn’t paid. He hardly ever lost any money. The restaurant was busiest on Shabbat. Friday night you had a full menu. A choice of stuffed carp, six other hors d’oeuvres at least. Friday night, it was usually only one soup: chicken soup with whatever you wanted in it. Then then they could have roast chicken, roast duck. Braised beef, which we called Gedämpftes Fleisch. We had about 14 entrees. Shabbat it was more limited. The fish was always there. The gefilte fish, the stuffed carp, & above all stuffed Hecht, pike, which is a labour of love. It is a schwere Arbeit, you know." To bake a stuffed pike this is what you have to do: you have to take the pike in your left hand, use a very sharp fishmonger’s knife here, go around getting the skin away from the flesh & you peel the skin of this long fish as if it were a stocking. It could take 20 minutes. You mustn’t pierce the skin because if you do you’ll have to sew it up. You get all the flesh away & you keep the bone. From the flesh you make the minced fish & you never have just the pike. Gefillte fish is always better when it’s made from three fish. You choose what you want. You usually choose whiting. Mackerel is not good. Funnily enough, hake is quite good, makes more jelly. Then you have a recipe: onions, almonds, a little salt, pepper & certainly sugar if you come from Galicia. And then you mix the fish & you put the fish into the stocking. Separately, with the bones & whatever else, you make a stock & in that stock, which takes ¾ of an hour at least, you poach the fish in a fish kettle very, very gently for 2¼ hours. Then you do have a gefilte fish. That’s why it’s called gefilte fish [stuffed fish]. It’s not the balls that you get in England. And the Cholent. It was different at Barschak. Hungarian Jews put in—in addition to all the normal ingredients of Cholent—some smoked meat: geräuchertes fleisch. A very special flavour. That's what Barschak’s was known for. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Fred Barschak's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, February 2007 • Learn More → Fred Barschak Anschluss Food Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Austria Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

996: How To Hide In Berlin Hans Danziger's Jewish parents survived the war in hiding in Berlin: Hans Danziger Read Full Text Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Home All Memories About Menu Close ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Adapted from Hans Danziger's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, February 2021 • Learn More → Hans Danziger Arrested Encounter With Nazi Officials False Identity Helped By Non-Jews Hiding In Plain Sight In Hiding Near Escape Nerves of Steel Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany See Locations Full Text Hans Danziger's Jewish parents survived the war in hiding in Berlin: My father had nerves of steel. Before the war, Jews were obliged to put ‘Israel’ in front of their names. My father refused. He said his name wasn't Israel & nobody was going to tell him what to do. So he was hauled up before the magistrates, who sentenced him to 3 weeks in Spandau. He went to prison. My mother was absolutely terrified of what they were doing to him inside, came to meet him at the prison gates with bags of sandwiches in case he’d been starved. He said, “Put those away. I couldn’t eat a thing more.” In the evenings, he said, the warders used to come round to his cell, & say, “Come on Danziger, tell us. What are these idiots doing to the Jews?" He told them what was going on & they were amazed. Another time, when they were hiding during the war, he'd been somewhere & was coming through the railway barriers. My mother was waiting for him & somebody jostled my father. My father turned around & offered to punch him in the face. My mother nearly died. They had no papers, nothing. My father said to her afterwards “If I'd cowered, they might have been saying, ‘Are you a Jew or something?’” He said, “As it was, nobody dared question it.” Another day, he was on the tram, having been to the country to fetch eggs & butter & so forth from a farmer. Black market. He was on the tram & some Nazi with a big swastika in his buttonhole said to him, “What have you got in your case?” My father said, “I've got butter, eggs, sugar, a bit of this, leg of chicken.” The chap says, “Yeah, yeah. In your dreams.” My father said, “Just shows you my son, always tell the truth.” This is how they first hid: my father was working in Daimler-Benz. One day, the Jews were told to stay behind. My father thought, well, this does not bode well. So he put his hat & coat on, & went. The gatekeeper said to him. “A bit early, isn't it?” My father said “I've got a dental appointment.” “OK, see you tomorrow.” He obviously hadn't been told to keep the Jews in. So my father went. God knows what happened to the rest. My father went straight to the underground, took off his yellow star, rode around, I don't know for how long. He then phoned some friends who said, “Yes, Lotti’s with us.” So he knew my mother was safe. Then he went to the house. Fischer, the porter, had made an arrangement with him. If there was trouble or the Nazis were upstairs, he would turn a cup upside down in his porters’ lodge. So my father went past & he saw the cup upside down. So he didn't go up. Then a couple of nights later, he went back again. There was nothing there. So he went upstairs. He broke the seal on the door, because the Gestapo had sealed the door. He started getting the boxes ready & the porter came rushing up & said, “What are you doing? Are you mad? Some people are saying there's a light on in the Danziger flat.” So they turned the lights off. My father said “Take what you want, just get the boxes to Goerner.” So they did up the boxes & manhandled them downstairs to the porter’s lodge. From there, they went to his friend Goerner’s place. These were all non-Jews. There were many people, all non-Jews who helped them, hid them, gave him false papers, took them out. I can't say enough about them. My father tried with Yad Vashem to get honours for certain people. One of them employed my father as a night watchman. So during the day, my father went out of the district where he was known & went to different places. At night, he had a safe place to go as a night watchman. By this time, my mother had been questioned by the Gestapo about where my father was. She could answer honestly saying she hadn't a clue. They left her alone. Then her friend Helli was working at an electrical plant, Siemens. The foreman there quite fancied her. When it was time, all the Jews stayed behind, he said to her “Look, I know you're not that keen, but do you want to go with them? Or do you want to come home?” She said, “I'll come home with you if my friend Lotti can come.” So he said, “Alright, bring your friend Lotti, but you’d better hurry.” So he got them to his house & put them up. There was an old railway carriage at the end of his garden with the chickens in. He threw out the chickens & installed Helli & my mother. He used to bring them little bits of felt to make hats, which he then sold in the factory. Nobody asked where he got the hats from. He was a bit of a drunk, & when he was drunk, he used to sing anti-Nazi songs. Not a good thing to do in those days. So, my mother got very frightened & said to Helli, “I don't think we ought to hang around here.” So my mother stayed with some other friends, one of whom was not Jewish. Had been married to a Jew, who had divorced him. He found my mother a job with some woman who had dementia & was some raving old Nazi. My mother didn't look very Jewish so that was OK. We have a photo of a Nazi officer in the photograph book. And we said, “What on earth’s he doing in there?!” You know. She said, “you don't judge a book by its cover”. She said she was somewhere at a party & this officer was there & he said to her, “I'm sure,” you know, “ask your husband's permission, but honoured Lady—gnädige Frau—if you would care to have my arm should you want to go out. I would always be—here's my phone number.” So she phoned him & he took her out. If she wanted to go shopping to some shop, where she wouldn't be allowed normally, he would take it to the shops. He knew she was Jewish. He didn't ask any questions; he didn't want to know. He never asked. He never said anything. But obviously, why should he bother, you know? Sadly, sadly, he was killed by the Russians at the end of the war & both his sons died on the Russian front—they were both doctors. Very sad. The ones who do good get killed. 996: How To Hide In Berlin Hans Danziger Adapted from Hans Danziger's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, February 2021 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

946: Being Stateless Is An Advantage Benno Stern: Benno Stern Read Full Text Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Home All Memories About Menu Close ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Benno Stern's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, June 2016 • Learn More → Benno Stern Encounter With Nazi Officials Hiding Valuables Nerves of Steel Polenaktion Reunited Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany See Locations Full Text 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. 946: Being Stateless Is An Advantage Benno Stern Edited from Benno Stern's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, June 2016 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

May 27, 1942: Reinhard Heydrich, a principle Nazi architect of the Holocaust, was fatally shot in Prague by Czech & Slovak soldiers trained by British Intelligence. Frank Bright remembers the Prague aftermath: 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. I didn’t look as if I had a gun on me. So they left, but they had to to tick their box [half-laughs]. They looked like typical Gestapo men. They didn’t wear uniform. They wore civvies. But they all wore the same outfits, the same raincoat, the same hat! You could see them from a mile. The reprisals were awful! It just wasn’t worth the candle. A whole village called Lidice was decimated, they shot all the men & took the women to concentration camps. They killed the children. A few they sent to Germany, to be with families, to be brought up as German. My friend Kurt Hirschman & his mother were sent on a transport directly to Poland & shot on arrival. They obviously had nothing to do with it. They were not sent to Theresienstadt first. This was the only transport that was sent directly to Poland, as a result of the assassination. The synagogues in Prague were used at that time as storehouses for the loot they got from the homes of people who had been deported. One of my teachers asked my father if he could prepare me for Bar Mitzvah. My father didn’t really care. He said, “Yes, if you want to” I went to see my teacher, Dr Glunsberg, a Doctor in Oriental languages. My portion was Isaiah, ‘Nachamu, nachamu ami’ [comfort, comfort my people]. I can recite it now. The day came, and they got cold feet. Because there were things like Razzias: where a group of Jews would congregate, the Gestapo would appear, arrest them all, & they would never be seen again. Razzia is an Italian word. And so they got cold feet, so nothing forward. So I had to learn a second portion. Again, Isaiah, & again I can recite it more or less. That was to be held again, at a synagogue of course. They got cold feet again. They were afraid that the Gestapo would hear of it, & they would disappear. So I had to learn a third one. Third time lucky. But that wasn’t held at a synagogue. That was held at a prayer room; this was the ‘Shtiebel’ as they called it, from the German ‘Stube’. There were only the right, minimum number—10—around. People I didn’t know, apart from my teacher. My father wasn’t there. So the atmosphere was one of fear. We had to wear a star. We had to hand in things the Army needed: anything from cameras to bicycles to woollens to typewriters to sewing machines. Musical instruments, including gramophones & records. You could whistle; that was about it. We could only shop during two hours in the afternoon, when things that were off the ration had already gone, Our rations were far, far smaller than anybody else’s. We had no allocation of fruit, or fish. Meat. No soap. We couldn’t go to a hairdresser. No onions. No clothing coupons. Everybody had to fill in a form giving every detail of their property, from the number of cups & saucers, to knives & forks to spoons, to frying pans, saucepans, ironing boards, irons, jackets, shoes & socks, chairs & tables & display cases. The lot. No vitamins & minerals. So we were susceptible to infections, no resistance. We got inflammations. I had a huge one under my arm. You'd use hot compresses to what they call ‘ripen it’ & then squeeze it out. That would heal & the next one would appear. 960: The Awful Heydrich Reprisals Frank Bright Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Previous Memory Next Memory 960: The Awful Heydrich Reprisals ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Frank Bright Read Full Text Previous Memory Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Frank Bright's interview with Dr Jana Buresova for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, February 2016 • Learn More → Frank Bright Attempted Humiliation Encounter With Nazi Officials Food Reprisals Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Czechoslovakia See Locations Full Text May 27, 1942: Reinhard Heydrich, a principle Nazi architect of the Holocaust, was fatally shot in Prague by Czech & Slovak soldiers trained by British Intelligence. Frank Bright remembers the Prague aftermath: 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. I didn’t look as if I had a gun on me. So they left, but they had to to tick their box [half-laughs]. They looked like typical Gestapo men. They didn’t wear uniform. They wore civvies. But they all wore the same outfits, the same raincoat, the same hat! You could see them from a mile. The reprisals were awful! It just wasn’t worth the candle. A whole village called Lidice was decimated, they shot all the men & took the women to concentration camps. They killed the children. A few they sent to Germany, to be with families, to be brought up as German. My friend Kurt Hirschman & his mother were sent on a transport directly to Poland & shot on arrival. They obviously had nothing to do with it. They were not sent to Theresienstadt first. This was the only transport that was sent directly to Poland, as a result of the assassination. The synagogues in Prague were used at that time as storehouses for the loot they got from the homes of people who had been deported. One of my teachers asked my father if he could prepare me for Bar Mitzvah. My father didn’t really care. He said, “Yes, if you want to” I went to see my teacher, Dr Glunsberg, a Doctor in Oriental languages. My portion was Isaiah, ‘Nachamu, nachamu ami’ [comfort, comfort my people]. I can recite it now. The day came, and they got cold feet. Because there were things like Razzias: where a group of Jews would congregate, the Gestapo would appear, arrest them all, & they would never be seen again. Razzia is an Italian word. And so they got cold feet, so nothing forward. So I had to learn a second portion. Again, Isaiah, & again I can recite it more or less. That was to be held again, at a synagogue of course. They got cold feet again. They were afraid that the Gestapo would hear of it, & they would disappear. So I had to learn a third one. Third time lucky. But that wasn’t held at a synagogue. That was held at a prayer room; this was the ‘Shtiebel’ as they called it, from the German ‘Stube’. There were only the right, minimum number—10—around. People I didn’t know, apart from my teacher. My father wasn’t there. So the atmosphere was one of fear. We had to wear a star. We had to hand in things the Army needed: anything from cameras to bicycles to woollens to typewriters to sewing machines. Musical instruments, including gramophones & records. You could whistle; that was about it. We could only shop during two hours in the afternoon, when things that were off the ration had already gone, Our rations were far, far smaller than anybody else’s. We had no allocation of fruit, or fish. Meat. No soap. We couldn’t go to a hairdresser. No onions. No clothing coupons. Everybody had to fill in a form giving every detail of their property, from the number of cups & saucers, to knives & forks to spoons, to frying pans, saucepans, ironing boards, irons, jackets, shoes & socks, chairs & tables & display cases. The lot. No vitamins & minerals. So we were susceptible to infections, no resistance. We got inflammations. I had a huge one under my arm. You'd use hot compresses to what they call ‘ripen it’ & then squeeze it out. That would heal & the next one would appear. 960: The Awful Heydrich Reprisals Frank Bright Edited from Frank Bright's interview with Dr Jana Buresova for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, February 2016 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts