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984: The Attack On Our School Albert Lester Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Albert Lester was 11 & a boarder at a Jewish school in Esslingen during the November Pogrom, November 9, 1938: I was playing with a little car in the common room when there was this huge commotion, children were running, screaming. I opened the door & was swept away by the screaming children. I went down the corridor & into the dining room, down to the kitchen under the spiral staircase, over the kitchen garden, over the fence. There was a huge drop down to the pavement in front of a 3-foot high wall. I thought if I jump here, I’m going to break my neck [laughs] or my legs. Then I saw a little boy next to me hang himself on the top of the wall by the fingertips & let himself drop & I did the same. So, I got out, got down all right. Then a lot of the children ran down towards the town, Esslingen. Some of us ran up to a little wood. We sat down on some broken tree stumps & didn’t know what was going on. We just sat down & waited. Then we decided after about quarter of an hour, you know, we can’t sit here all day, so one of the girls—there were about maybe six or seven of us—there was one girl & we sent her back to school to do some reconnaissance. We thought a girl wouldn't be harmed, while a boy might. Anyway, she went & came back & told us, yes, she spoke to somebody & we all have to go back. So we all trooped back, didn't know what was going on. Then we saw really what happened. In the playground stood men with clubs & sticks. The front door, this beautiful oak door, was ripped off its hinges, all the windows were smashed. There was a beautiful marble imitation statue of Michelangelo’s Moses. The head was chopped off & it was rolling on the ground. All the bottom panels of the classroom doors were all kicked in & it was shambles. We were then told to go into a classroom where there were already something like 30 or 40 children whom they collected. There we were told to sit down & not talk, just sit there. We sat there, nobody cried, we were all terrified but we didn't know what was happening. Then I was looking at this big hole in the door. I really thought they're going to put a machine gun in & just let us have it. I was quite—I really thought that this would happen. There was a guy with a big club keeping us quiet. Then he left after about quarter of an hour & then the headmaster, Dr Rothschild, came in. He sat down on the desk in front & he put his head in his hands & began to weep. Then of course everybody began to cry. The floodgates just opened up. After he composed himself, he told us what had happened, that this German, von Rath was killed by a Polish youth in Paris & there was a big uprising of the German, the “Volkswut”, & they smashed all the synagogues & set synagogues alight & burst in Jewish shops & arrested all Jewish men, including our teachers. I don't know why he wasn’t arrested, maybe because he was an old man, about 60. He told us that the school would close & we’d all be sent home. The Jewish community in Stuttgart nearby heard that they raided the school, so they came in their cars to pick us up & take us home to look after us while arrangements were made to send us home. I was given a ticket & sent home with my suitcase. In Heilbronn I changed trains into a D-Zug. I sat in the compartment alone when the door flew open & there stood a man in full SS uniform. I thought, my God, you know, this is going to be bad, so I pretended to be asleep. I prayed: ‘please dear God, don't let him start talking to me’. You know, what's a little boy doing on his own on an express train. I pretended to be asleep & he sat there. He didn't say anything. Mercifully at the next stop he got up, got to the door, a ‘Heil Hitler’, & left. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Adapted from Albert Lester's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, January 2024 • Learn More → Albert Lester Destruction of Property Encounter With Nazi Officials November Pogrom / Kristallnacht Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

998: Red Oaks Boarding School Our Services Item Title Two Item Title Three Ruth Jackson, aged 13, came to Britain on a 1939 Kindertransport from Berlin & is sent to Red Oaks boarding school in Essex: Ruth Jackson 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 Ruth Jackson's interview with Helen Lloyd for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, August 2004 • Learn More → Ruth Jackson Boarder Food Homesick Kindertransport Not Allowed To Visit Cinemas Staying With Strangers Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts England See Locations Full Text Ruth Jackson, aged 13, came to Britain on a 1939 Kindertransport from Berlin & was sent to Red Oaks boarding school in Essex: 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. It was empty & cold & horrid-looking. There must have been 10 rows of beds on either side. I went to the bathroom & sat there in floods of tears & I thought what would my mother be doing now & how did she get back home, & is everyone alright & tears were just running down my face & there’s nobody to scrub my back. Then there was a knock on the door, ‘would I please hurry up & come down’. So I hastily got out of the water & my daydreaming, put clean clothes on, & a schoolgirl showed me the way down, there were a few girls still there, & we sat down to what was called High Tea. I was given my first cup of tea with milk which I thought was horrible. I couldn’t eat anything & they looked at me. Some of them tried to talk to me. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I felt a bit like an animal in the zoo. I wished they wouldn't talk to me at all. But, anyway, finally the meal was over and they all went home. I seemed to be left there & nobody else in this empty school for the summer holidays. Teachers had gone, there were a few domestic staff there. One of the maids showed me round the garden & showed me the library. The Headmistress then called for me & said I ought to write a letter home to say I’d got there alright, would I show her the letter before I sent it? So I did & I thought she probably doesn’t understand any German, but anyway I showed her the letter. I suppose she posted it. I had a look at the library, at the books about Australia, & I thought: maybe one day I’ll go there. Then I had to go to bed in this forlorn dormitory, & I couldn’t go to sleep, & I just lay there under the bedclothes sobbing away thinking why on earth did I have to come here, why did all this have to happen? Eventually I did fall asleep, only to be woken by one of the maids to say it was breakfast time & that there were some children coming from the East End of London, for the holidays. We got friendly, & somehow we could understand one another. It was good to have some children there. They took us to the pictures in Epping. I’d never been to the pictures before. It was Old Mother Riley, which I thought was terribly stupid, & Bandwagon. It wasn’t my sense of humour. But what impressed me was that in the interval little trays of tea went round & people had little cups of tea in the interval which I thought was amazing. What worried me was that the teacher had taken me to the cinema. Because I as a Jewess wasn’t allowed to go to the cinema in Germany. She kept saying yes it’s alright. I thought, I hope she doesn’t get into trouble, you know. It hadn’t left me. One day the Headmistress called for me to come to her. It must have been the beginning of September. We’d already been given gas masks. I didn’t like those because I couldn’t breathe in them. The Headmistress said: ‘I’ve got a letter here from your sister, she’s going to come to England soon’. All the letters had been opened beforehand. My sister had written to say that I’d only be alone for another few days because she’d got a visa & would be leaving Germany on the 4th of September. So I thought, Oh good, it’s only next Monday, I can just about cope until then. Then of course she called me in again on the Sunday morning & said in a very matter of fact way ‘Well your sister won’t be coming now because we are at war with Germany’. I felt; well, like somebody closing the door in my face. I just didn’t know what to think. I felt devastated. Then a week later, she called for me again & said ‘You’re to go to London, to another school. So pack your things & the maid will take you to the station" Ruth went to stay with the Yardley family in Letchworth. From the point of view of money, education, & everything else, I couldn’t grumble, I did much better than a lot of them. But the one thing that I needed was love. One day there was a football match going on in the fields beyond where we lived, & there was a policeman standing outside our gate, & I saw him. To me, he’d come for me. I knew he’d been posted there so I couldn’t leave the house. I didn’t think that he’d been posted there because of the crowds of people coming after the football match. Anyway, it was teatime, & Jean called me for tea. I stood behind the curtains watching that gate & I said I couldn’t come. So Mrs Yardley said go & drag her down to tea, see what’s the matter. She came up to my room & said ‘Mother says you are to come down to tea’. I said ‘I can’t’. Why can’t you? I looked out & said: he’s standing there, he’s going to come in for me. So she went down & told her mother. Then to my horror, Mrs Yardley went out of the front door, down the long drive, to the gate. She talked to the policeman & he came in with her. I thought: I thought she was a nice person, I thought she was on my side, & now she’s actually getting this policeman in, & making it easier for him to get me. So I certainly wouldn’t go downstairs. After a lot of persuasion I finally did go downstairs. They sat having a cup of tea. And Mrs Yardley said, ‘This is Inspector whatever’, & he gave his name, & I thought, well, that’s a funny thing. So he said ‘Well thank you very much, Mrs Yardley, for the tea, nice to have met you, Ruth, bye, bye. I’ve got to go out to make sure that we haven’t got too many people up in the fields misbehaving. I thought: how funny. And how clever Mrs Yardley had been, that she’d called him in to have a cup of tea. To show me that I needn’t be afraid of the police. 998: Red Oaks Boarding School Ruth Jackson Adapted from Ruth Jackson's interview with Helen Lloyd for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, August 2004 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

994: Grass Snakes At The Beacon Lilly Lampert Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Lilly Lampert came to Britain from Vienna on a Kindertransport in 1939: 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, because they landed up in Theresienstadt. I shared a bedroom with my parents until my sister left & then I got her room. She came to England 6 months before me. She got somebody to guarantee me, because in those days you couldn't just come to England. She had a hell of a job to get somebody to put £50 pounds forward. I was always doing things. Playing with my dolls, making dolls clothes. Television stops all that, a lot of things I used to do. I brought 2 suitcases. Clothes & one doll. You know, you can't just bring things to England. It had to be a certain weight only. When Hitler marched in, they welcomed him with open arms, didn’t they, the Viennese? That's all I really remember. Things were hidden from me, because I was a little girl. Now all the young kids, they know everything. But in those days, anything not nice was sheltered. My parents were going to follow me. My sister tried desperately to find somebody to – for my mother to be a cook somewhere & my father, a gardener, which he'd never done his life before. But somebody had to say, ‘Yes, he can come & do my garden’, just to get out. But war came. The train ride was at night time. We left on the 13th. I always tell people 13 must be lucky for me, otherwise I wouldn't be alive. I wouldn't have left Vienna. I would be dead like the rest of my family. It was just a normal journey. I was 9. My sister met me at the station. She took me back to her place, one room somewhere. She went to Bloomsbury House. They managed to find me a place in The Beacon in Rusthall. A girl's hostel. She put me on the train & someone met me on the other side. I must have been quite nervous. You don't know the language. You don't know where you are. Terrible, but I survived. But we had three lakes. It was a lovely place we lived in. Now it's a sort of hotel. Five days after I arrived someone I knew from Vienna came there. Mela. She was thrilled to see me. We became good friends until she died. Most people either were German or Austrian. From Czechoslovakia we got one or two. They discouraged us to speak German. They wanted us to speak English. We were quite happy there. I stayed till I came to London in 1947. It was a lovely place & they were nice to us. Most of them. We had snakes in the garden. Mainly grass snakes, apparently. But a snake is a snake, isn't it? They always told us they were only grass snakes, but I wasn't so sure. I couldn't write letters to my parents anymore under normal postage, it had to go through the Red Cross. Only a certain amount of words. I had to write it in an office in Tunbridge Wells, tell them the words. They wrote them down. All I was allowed to do is sign my name, wasn't allowed to even write it myself. Send it to Vienna & my parents answered on the same bit of paper. It's like a boarding school, only a bit rougher. No luxuries. It was quite impersonal, because the staff really, I think they did it just for money. They didn't care for us. There was one matron we quite liked, Mrs Fisher. She was nice because she had her own daughter there. They squashed us in, about 8 in a room. It's not nice sleeping with so many people, squashed in very close to each other. It's hard to remember VE Day because I've wiped these memories out. I don't think about them anymore. It's a different world. Everyone was happy, I suppose. After the war, in 1946, I got a letter from my mother. She wrote that letter in 1943 & gave it to an aunt of mine who was in the concentration camp with her. This aunt survived, went to America & she sent me the letter that my mother wrote. My father was already dead. It says she's now all alone & would bear anything if she could see me for just a second. She must have been very, very, very low. It hurts when you read a thing like that. You should never know anything like that again happening. But it still goes on. That's all I can tell you. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Adapted from Lilly Lampert's interview with Deborah Koder for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, April 2024 • Learn More → Lilly Lampert Boarder Close Family Murdered Homesick Hostel Kindertransport Red Cross Letters Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts England Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

981: 4th of the 4th, 1944 Jack Cynamon Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Jack Cynamon came to Britain in 1945 after spending part of WW2 in hiding in Belgium: My first recollection is aeroplanes in the sky in Brussels. One morning the sky was full of aeroplanes. There must have been 60. We didn't know what to do. My parents packed a few things, went to the railway station & embarked on the train, in a cattle truck with straw. The train went on & on for 5 days. They were fed by people at the stations, with food & water, they carried on until they reached the Pyrenees. My father worked on a potato farm, they both did, picking potatoes for a farmer, stayed there for about two months & then returned to Brussels because they found out that things weren’t as bad as originally thought. Actually, things were not so bad in Belgium until 1942. I can’t recollect going to school but I must have gone to school of some form. Then in '42 things started to get really tough. We all had to start wearing a Star of David. We were registered as Jews. My mother & father decided to try & escape. First they tried to get to Spain. They found a guide, he took them all but at the border he decided to take their money & leave them. Then we came back to Belgium, & then they tried again. They tried a second time to escape to Switzerland & again the guide took their money & left them at the border. Then things in Belgium became really desperate. They decided to start going to a hiding place. The only way they had currency, my mother had small diamonds & a specially made shoe. She hid the diamonds in the heel of this specially made shoe. Then they went into hiding. The person that looked after them was a guy by the name of Cnudde. He worked for my father & was able to bring food & the like. He hid them in an attic, I’m not sure where. I was in that attic as well. Then they realised that they could not keep me in an attic. I was 8. I was too – I wanted to run & do things & do what boys do. So one day I remember walking along & we came along to a church & my father said goodbye to me & they left me with a priest, & that was the very last time I saw my father. I vaguely remember saying a sort of goodbye. That was it. The very last time I saw my father. I became a choirboy, in a very lovely place – with other children. I became a choirboy, with all the bells & whistles & everything else. I had blue eyes & blonde hair, I blended in. I can’t recollect anybody or any of the things that I did when I was there. I was sort of in a – in a quandary. I didn't know what was what. You just go with the flow. I remember being liberated in 1944, the German army leaving, using horse-drawn carriages, pulling big guns. I recall very vividly that same afternoon the American tanks coming into view. 6 tanks & a jeep. They showered us with sweets & chewing gum. My parents were still in hiding. One day there was a bang on the door because the Germans were doing a house-to-house search for Jews. There was a banging on the door & the Gestapo came in & discovered them. My mother tells me that the very last words my father said to my mother was [gets upset] she was – it's painful. It’s emotional. 'If you ever find Jackie, promise me he will be bar mitzvahed'. He was taken to Mechelen, a holding camp & then to Auschwitz, in one of the very last transports: on the fourth of the fourth, 1944. So many times I wake up at 4:44 in the morning, thinking about him, a very significant number for me. I woke up this morning with the same. My mother was British-born so she went to an intern camp, finished up in La Bourboule which is in the Massif Central, which is really quite a nice place. I joined her there after the war. I was in Brussels & out comes my mother. I was, to be truthful, I was horrified. She wanted me to go back with her. I didn't want to. I wanted to stay with the church, with the priest who loved me. My mother was at that stage a sort of a stranger. I hadn’t seen her for 2½ years." Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Adapted from Jack Cynamon's interview with Thamar Barnett for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, July 2024 • Learn More → Jack Cynamon Betrayed Close Family Murdered Helped By Non-Jews Hidden Child Hiding Valuables In Hiding Liberation Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Belgium Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

969: No One In My Situation Lia Lesser Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close 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. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Lia Lesser's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, April 2023 • Learn More → Lia Lesser Auschwitz Close Family Murdered Finding Out Helped By Non-Jews Hiding Valuables Kindertransport Nicholas Winton Kindertransport Not Remembering Recovery Red Cross Letters Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Czechoslovakia Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

Ruth Jackson, age 12, Berlin, November 8, 1938: 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 & painted a big white ‘J’ or wrote the word ‘Jude’ meaning ‘Jew’, on all the shop windows in Berlin, so that was an easier target for them. On the actual night I was woken—my parents told me to get dressed, & we all sat & waited, because we could hear all the noise down the roads, of lorries, people being—shouted, being pulled out of their homes. There was a furrier opposite us & he had two small children. They were pulled out in their nightclothes & shoved onto the lorry. It was a very frightening experience. I was waiting for them to come into our house any moment now, but somehow we got missed out. It was a corner house & they went round the corner & they took a young family with a baby. I really couldn’t understand what they could have done wrong. So we sat there waiting & finally with a lot of shouting & banging, a lot of noise everywhere, glass flying, the Nazis left. My mother made the usual cup of coffee & said, ‘Now we can go to bed’, but we really couldn’t go to sleep any more. The next morning she told me not to go to school, but I was fond of school so I went, only to find that my school had been ransacked. We had vines growing up the school & we enjoyed harvesting the grapes, but they had all been pulled down. The books were all smouldering from the fire in the foreground. The building was a new building so it was very much of a concrete block, they couldn’t do much there but the glass windows of course were broken, the furniture was broken or burnt. The Headmistress told us to go home again, very quietly, but in small groups, which we did. After that, my parents thought it was best that I went to another school again, which I did. The new school was not far away from the KDW, if you know where that is, it’s a big store, on Joachimsthaler Strasse, it was called the Josef-Lehmann-Schule. So I went there, just for a short time, until I emigrated. After going to the new school I used to quite often walk to the school, take a bus in the morning, walk home again. I quite liked walking down the Kurfürstendamm, especially at Christmastime, they used to have Christmas trees for sale all along the road, & they had booths along there, selling things, Christmassy things. Like any other child I enjoyed looking at those, but I couldn’t understand why all these people were all in such a happy mood. They didn’t seem to care about what was happening to us at all. And Hanukkah, that’s our feast of lights, was spent very quietly at home. 991: My Ransacked School Ruth Jackson 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 991: My Ransacked School ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Ruth Jackson Read Full Text Previous Memory Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Adapted from Ruth Jackson's interview with Helen Lloyd for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, August 2004 • Learn More → Ruth Jackson Destruction of Property November Pogrom / Kristallnacht Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany See Locations Full Text Ruth Jackson, age 12, Berlin, November 8, 1938: 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 & painted a big white ‘J’ or wrote the word ‘Jude’ meaning ‘Jew’, on all the shop windows in Berlin, so that was an easier target for them. On the actual night I was woken—my parents told me to get dressed, & we all sat & waited, because we could hear all the noise down the roads, of lorries, people being—shouted, being pulled out of their homes. There was a furrier opposite us & he had two small children. They were pulled out in their nightclothes & shoved onto the lorry. It was a very frightening experience. I was waiting for them to come into our house any moment now, but somehow we got missed out. It was a corner house & they went round the corner & they took a young family with a baby. I really couldn’t understand what they could have done wrong. So we sat there waiting & finally with a lot of shouting & banging, a lot of noise everywhere, glass flying, the Nazis left. My mother made the usual cup of coffee & said, ‘Now we can go to bed’, but we really couldn’t go to sleep any more. The next morning she told me not to go to school, but I was fond of school so I went, only to find that my school had been ransacked. We had vines growing up the school & we enjoyed harvesting the grapes, but they had all been pulled down. The books were all smouldering from the fire in the foreground. The building was a new building so it was very much of a concrete block, they couldn’t do much there but the glass windows of course were broken, the furniture was broken or burnt. The Headmistress told us to go home again, very quietly, but in small groups, which we did. After that, my parents thought it was best that I went to another school again, which I did. The new school was not far away from the KDW, if you know where that is, it’s a big store, on Joachimsthaler Strasse, it was called the Josef-Lehmann-Schule. So I went there, just for a short time, until I emigrated. After going to the new school I used to quite often walk to the school, take a bus in the morning, walk home again. I quite liked walking down the Kurfürstendamm, especially at Christmastime, they used to have Christmas trees for sale all along the road, & they had booths along there, selling things, Christmassy things. Like any other child I enjoyed looking at those, but I couldn’t understand why all these people were all in such a happy mood. They didn’t seem to care about what was happening to us at all. And Hanukkah, that’s our feast of lights, was spent very quietly at home. 991: My Ransacked School Ruth Jackson Adapted from Ruth Jackson's interview with Helen Lloyd for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, August 2004 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

988: Getting Up From The Dust Ivor Perl BEM Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Ivor Perl BEM, born in Makó, Hungary, survived Auschwitz, Kaufering & Dachau camps: 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. I think I've only got three photos. Painful. I'd give my children a hug when they were leaving for school: 'Give me a kiss, have a nice day'. But people living in that part of the world at that part of the time had couldn't afford that luxury. The antisemitism was constant. Growing up I accepted being called a dirty Jew." Ivor was 7th out of 9 siblings. My brother Alec was the only other one who survived. He was two years older than me. We went together to Auschwitz & survived together. He looked after me. He saved me from the gas oven twice, literally. I was in the gate of hell when he saved me. When the Germans overthrew the Hungarian government [1944], from the following morning, edicts started coming out against the Jews, gradually. Jews mustn’t marry non-Jewish people. You must be home by 7. You mustn’t go from a certain street. Gradual, gradual, until the noose. We used to play football with non-Jewish friends. Those same boys, when the time came for us to be herded into Szeged ghetto, they were ones that herded us there. After the war my brother spoke to those boys we used to play with. He said, how could you do that to us? They said: Well, we didn't know what was happening. All we were told along was the equivalent of the Boy Scouts. The sergeant used to come along: tomorrow, turn up with a stick & we’ll give you ten shillings. And they turned up & their job was to herd us into the ghetto. My father & two other brothers were sent to the labour battalion & then to Auschwitz. One day in Auschwitz, my brother & I were walking along & he said to me: our father is here. I said: how comes? We used to have roll calls every morning & one day my father didn't come back. We've got the date of his sort of passing away but not the when or why, I've got no idea. As a young boy, you never realise the severity of it all. To show you how it was: when I first went on the cattle truck I laid down on the floor and could see the trains running from the railway lines, clickety-click, click, & I said to myself: Oh, wow, isn't this an adventurous journey? My oldest brother David was a rabbi at 21. When he went to Auschwitz, I heard later on that he worked in a Sonderkommando. Have you heard of that? What happened: people used to arrive at Auschwitz & be segregated. Those that could work were put to one side, those who were not just went to the gas chamber. But what happened after the gas chamber? Who took the dead bodies from the gas chamber to the crematoria? The slaves. The Sonnderkommando. But the Sonnderkommando were not allowed to live more than 4 weeks. Every 4 weeks, they themselves were put in a gas oven. I mean. Can you imagine? I wrote a book. My wife said: why don't you do something useful? You’ve got a computer, nobody knows your life story, including your children, write your life story instead of wasting your time. So I sat down at the computer for half an hour, not knowing what to write. As I started typing, suddenly it all came out. I was 50. Until then I lived a life of denial. I thought the best way forward for me, get up from the dust, dust myself down, try not to think too much about the past because I didn't want to hurt the children or the wife. But afterwards the children kept on telling us, why didn't you tell us about it? We said: Because we didn't want to hurt you. They said: they didn't ask us because they didn't want to hurt us. But we didn't have the luxury of therapy in those days. Was it the right way to go about it? I don't know. I don't know. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Adapted from Ivor Perl BEM's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, October 2024 • Learn More → Ivor Perl BEM Attempted Humiliation Auschwitz Betrayed Close Family Murdered Concentration Camp Ghetto Incarceration Not Remembering Recovery Telling The Story Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Hungary Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

972: Discovering My Brother Was Alive Our Services Item Title Two Item Title Three Sweden, postwar. Mala Tribich MBE, recuperating after concentration camps, thinks she is the only member of her family to survive: Mala Tribich 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 Adapted from Mala Tribich MBE's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, September 2023 • Learn More → Mala Tribich MBE Close Family Murdered Hostel Recovery Reunited Swedish Recuperation Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts England See Locations Full Text Sweden, postwar. Mala Tribich MBE, recuperating after concentration camps, thinks she is the only member of her family to survive: Then 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. I ran out into the grounds of this place. There were people milling around. It was a nice summer day & I was holding up this letter saying—shouting, I've got a letter from my brother, I've got a letter from my brother. I was sort of running through the grounds saying that. I think that probably it was nice for all of them to know that somebody’s found their relative alive. Then Ben & I started corresponding. And everyone started leaving Sweden gradually. In 1947 it was decided I was going to my brother in England. Oh, it was a great celebration. They were all very pleased for me. Most people didn't have anywhere to go. I travelled by myself. Today, they would send someone with you &, you know, everything. But in those days, they put me on the boat & I travelled. I was seasick. Ben was waiting with a friend. I could recognise him. It – three years. Mind you, that three years is different because one develops and – yes, I have some lovely pictures of his early time here. I was very excited. We got on the train to go to Victoria Station. I was quite fascinated by the houses. The back of the houses on a railway line, they don't look so great. That was just after the war when they hadn’t done anything to them. There were chimneys & chimneys & chimneys on some older houses, that's what struck me. Ben was living in a hostel in Swiss Cottage. A man had donated two houses, turned them into a hostel. We had games, dances, music, meetings. They were proper. Someone from the Central British Fund came to meet me. She said: 'we haven’t found anything for you yet but there's one girl who’s had an operation. 'She is on convalescence in Blackpool, so you can have her room. By the time she comes back we’ll have found you a room'. They sent someone to go with me, to look after me, & they sent me out to get some clothes. I had clothes but they felt that they wanted to fit me out. You had to have coupons. They didn't always have the clothes that you wanted & there wasn't another delivery for six months & you saw something in the window & you liked it & then they'd say no, but that's only for the window, we haven’t got anything for sale. Difficult, very hard times then but they took me out to kit me out. It wasn't anything too extravagant but they—anything I needed. Then they sent me to learn English. I went to a place in Warren Street called English for Foreigners. I learnt that very quickly [laughs]. Not because I’m good at it but because I knew how quickly I needed it. So then from there, yes, then they wanted to know what I wanted to do, to earn a living. I wanted to do secretarial work, so they sent me to a secretarial college for just about a year in Swiss Cottage. After that I was working & I was self-supporting. My first job was for Cape Times, the newspaper. They had a London office & that's where I got a job, at £4 a week, & I lived on the £4 a week. And from there, you know, I went up and up. 972: Discovering My Brother Was Alive Mala Tribich MBE Adapted from Mala Tribich MBE's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, September 2023 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

973: The Puzzle & The Blanks Jacques Weisser BEM Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close 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. Previous Memory 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 Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

Nitra, Slovakia, September 1944: Miriam Freedman, her sister, mother, cousin & uncle & aunt go into hiding in a flat: At nighttime, 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. The caretaker was fantastic. Sometimes Germans came in looking accommodation for the officers. So what did the caretaker do? He changed the lock of the flat & said the owners were away & nobody can use this flat. He was very clever, the caretaker. He changed the locks. I can’t remember having a shower or a change of clothes. The caretaker had a daughter my age. They had a problem: why is her mother now cooking a lot of food? So the little girl had to be told about us, but she went to school & children often tell secrets they shouldn't. So they actually threatened her to death, the people who saved our life, if she revealed anything to anybody. The caretaker helped us because he was paid, but also because he was a communist. He disagreed with the Germans. At first my uncle had a little money. Eventually it ran out. But my uncle promised after the war that he'd be compensated. By that stage it was as bad for them as for us. If they're caught, if they reveal they're hiding Jews, they are in same position. They know they're going to be killed as well, if we get found. Once we were nearly caught forever. A drunken official came with about 20 soldiers, Hlinka Guard or Nazi, I do not know. They said: we know there are Jews here, we are going to find them one way or another. The caretaker took us down to the cellar. He'd carved a hole there. We went 8 people into this hole, like sardines. The size of this sofa, 8 people, lying together, when there was a rumour that the building is going to be searched. I don't remember ever eating, or going to the toilet. It was like you blocked it, are in a state of denial. You don't want to believe it happened. Next to our hole, in the basement, soldiers used to come regularly to exercise. A tiny wall between us & this big room where the soldiers were exercising. If you cough, we had it. So we had this continental quilt with big feathers. We all had it on our mouth, if you cough into the quilt you don't hear the echo. Sometimes we were there for long time. At night they left, so we could go out into the next part of the cellar. I went to see it a few years ago. You can’t believe it, how small it was. All I remember is, move, move, but where shall I move? There was only a wall & a pipe. It was so terrible. When things quietened down we went back up to the flat. But then a new rumour that they're looking for Jews here. The caretaker terribly quickly ran upstairs & told us: this is the end of it, we have to surrender now to the Gestapo because I can't take you down to the cellar. I can’t take you anywhere, say goodbye, pray, do whatever you like, say goodbye to each other, that is that. Believe me, he was in terrible danger too. But this is what he did: the officer took away all the bunches of keys from every single flat that the caretaker had. But what the caretaker did in 5 seconds: he slipped the old key into the chain & our new key was put away. We could hear the officer coming from door to door. We could hear them talking in the flat next to ours, but very merry, all laughing & joking. I suppose they gave more drink – drink, drink, drinking all the time. When they came out it was the turn of our flat & we could hear him. He tried to enter the key in the keyhole. It wouldn't go in, he couldn't get in. So the caretaker said to him, listen, the only way we can break this door, we go downstairs & get some heavy instrument to break it. For whatever reason, it’s not opening. So he convinced the officer who was drunk, gave him more drink, went downstairs & he said, well, we have seen all the flats, didn't we? So now we can say goodbye. It’s the only flat he didn't enter. Only flat. ’Cos he was so drunk he didn't know what's happening & they said there's no more places to look. This was our saving grace. We couldn't hide anywhere in the flat. There was only one cupboard there. Hiding there wouldn't have made any difference, we'd have been caught. This was the end of our life, would have been. Then we were rescued by the Russians. And trouble started with the Russians [laughs]. One story I forgot to tell you: Christmastime, the caretaker told me: I’m giving you a present. He brought his little daughter to play with me. It was something wonderful because I never saw a child my age. But I didn't know how to talk to her anymore. I had nothing to talk to her about. But I said one thing: if I survive this war I want to be a sportswoman. That was my whole dream: running, running, running. I said to her, I’m going to race you & you never could catch me. The war came over, I couldn’t walk any more. Because of lack of circulation our legs were so swollen. We didn't move. When you don't move for a long time you can't just start. So when the war was over, the girl said: Come on, let’s have a race. I couldn't even lift up my leg. But I was determined to become a sportswoman. I become one, & reached quite a high level. Running, swimming, handball, cycling. I trained for the Olympics. All my life was sports, sports, sports. Every possibility. When I got out of the war something in me wanted to move. The running represent freedom to me, to move. 999: The Caretaker & His Daughter Miriam Freedman 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 999: The Caretaker & His Daughter ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Miriam Freedman Read Full Text Previous Memory Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Adapted from Miriam Freedman's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, July 2024 • Learn More → Miriam Freedman Helped By Non-Jews In Hiding Near Escape Recovery Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Czechoslovakia See Locations Full Text Nitra, Slovakia, September 1944: Miriam Freedman, her sister, mother, cousin & uncle & aunt go into hiding in a flat: At nighttime, 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. The caretaker was fantastic. Sometimes Germans came in looking accommodation for the officers. So what did the caretaker do? He changed the lock of the flat & said the owners were away & nobody can use this flat. He was very clever, the caretaker. He changed the locks. I can’t remember having a shower or a change of clothes. The caretaker had a daughter my age. They had a problem: why is her mother now cooking a lot of food? So the little girl had to be told about us, but she went to school & children often tell secrets they shouldn't. So they actually threatened her to death, the people who saved our life, if she revealed anything to anybody. The caretaker helped us because he was paid, but also because he was a communist. He disagreed with the Germans. At first my uncle had a little money. Eventually it ran out. But my uncle promised after the war that he'd be compensated. By that stage it was as bad for them as for us. If they're caught, if they reveal they're hiding Jews, they are in same position. They know they're going to be killed as well, if we get found. Once we were nearly caught forever. A drunken official came with about 20 soldiers, Hlinka Guard or Nazi, I do not know. They said: we know there are Jews here, we are going to find them one way or another. The caretaker took us down to the cellar. He'd carved a hole there. We went 8 people into this hole, like sardines. The size of this sofa, 8 people, lying together, when there was a rumour that the building is going to be searched. I don't remember ever eating, or going to the toilet. It was like you blocked it, are in a state of denial. You don't want to believe it happened. Next to our hole, in the basement, soldiers used to come regularly to exercise. A tiny wall between us & this big room where the soldiers were exercising. If you cough, we had it. So we had this continental quilt with big feathers. We all had it on our mouth, if you cough into the quilt you don't hear the echo. Sometimes we were there for long time. At night they left, so we could go out into the next part of the cellar. I went to see it a few years ago. You can’t believe it, how small it was. All I remember is, move, move, but where shall I move? There was only a wall & a pipe. It was so terrible. When things quietened down we went back up to the flat. But then a new rumour that they're looking for Jews here. The caretaker terribly quickly ran upstairs & told us: this is the end of it, we have to surrender now to the Gestapo because I can't take you down to the cellar. I can’t take you anywhere, say goodbye, pray, do whatever you like, say goodbye to each other, that is that. Believe me, he was in terrible danger too. But this is what he did: the officer took away all the bunches of keys from every single flat that the caretaker had. But what the caretaker did in 5 seconds: he slipped the old key into the chain & our new key was put away. We could hear the officer coming from door to door. We could hear them talking in the flat next to ours, but very merry, all laughing & joking. I suppose they gave more drink – drink, drink, drinking all the time. When they came out it was the turn of our flat & we could hear him. He tried to enter the key in the keyhole. It wouldn't go in, he couldn't get in. So the caretaker said to him, listen, the only way we can break this door, we go downstairs & get some heavy instrument to break it. For whatever reason, it’s not opening. So he convinced the officer who was drunk, gave him more drink, went downstairs & he said, well, we have seen all the flats, didn't we? So now we can say goodbye. It’s the only flat he didn't enter. Only flat. ’Cos he was so drunk he didn't know what's happening & they said there's no more places to look. This was our saving grace. We couldn't hide anywhere in the flat. There was only one cupboard there. Hiding there wouldn't have made any difference, we'd have been caught. This was the end of our life, would have been. Then we were rescued by the Russians. And trouble started with the Russians [laughs]. One story I forgot to tell you: Christmastime, the caretaker told me: I’m giving you a present. He brought his little daughter to play with me. It was something wonderful because I never saw a child my age. But I didn't know how to talk to her anymore. I had nothing to talk to her about. But I said one thing: if I survive this war I want to be a sportswoman. That was my whole dream: running, running, running. I said to her, I’m going to race you & you never could catch me. The war came over, I couldn’t walk any more. Because of lack of circulation our legs were so swollen. We didn't move. When you don't move for a long time you can't just start. So when the war was over, the girl said: Come on, let’s have a race. I couldn't even lift up my leg. But I was determined to become a sportswoman. I become one, & reached quite a high level. Running, swimming, handball, cycling. I trained for the Olympics. All my life was sports, sports, sports. Every possibility. When I got out of the war something in me wanted to move. The running represent freedom to me, to move. 999: The Caretaker & His Daughter Miriam Freedman Adapted from Miriam Freedman's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, July 2024 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

Berlin, October 28, 1938: Betty Bloom's father Joseph Schütz is deported back to Poland as part of the Polenaktion: Unfortunately, at 6am, there was a knock on the door & two Gestapo officers marched in & arrested my father. He didn't even have time to say goodbye to us. They took him down the stairs. He was on the first transport of Polish Jews to—you know—deported from Berlin to a place on the Polish border. The Poles wouldn't let him in. They were left there in October without any clothes, without anything, without any heating, for months. They couldn't go back; they couldn't go forward until the Poles eventually relented & let them into Poland. My father made contact with his family. In Poland he went first to stay with his mother in a place called Nowy Sącz, not far from Jaslo near the Czech border. I don't know how long he was there for. We had one or two calls from him. I had a cousin left in Berlin who sent parcels to my father because she was in hiding but she managed to send parcels to my father which I've never forgotten. I know he ended up in Buchenwald eventually because a survivor from Buchenwald made contact with my mother & came & told her that he was with him in Buchenwald in '44. At the end of '44, beginning '45. I assume he was in the death march from Buchenwald to Bergen-Belsen. 15 years ago my husband & I went to Auschwitz. We searched the records in Auschwitz but found no record of my father. I don't know the exact date that the Red Cross contacted us & informed us that the last record they have of my father is in Bergen-Belsen in January 1945, which to us was the worst news we could have had. Because to survive from '38 to '45 & then to die like this. Now after these deportations to Poland was the Kristallnacht because one of the people whose parents were deported—you probably know his name, a young man, Grynszpan. He was so angry that he killed a German in Paris which gave the Nazis the excuse for for Kristallnacht. Following Kristallnacht, I was very aware of what's going on because even at 7 or 8, at the end of our road, there was a display panel for Der Stürmer—the Nazi magazine. I read it. I read anything I could read. They made, there was a sign on our shop saying "Kauft nicht bei Juden", don't buy from Jews, even before my father was deported. So, I was well aware of what was going on. So then my mother's brother was sending his children to England, on the Kindertransport. And my older sister Ruth started to say we must do the same. 987: Father's Deportation Betty Bloom 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 987: Father's Deportation ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Betty Bloom Read Full Text Previous Memory Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Adapted from Betty Bloom's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, February 2020 • Learn More → Betty Bloom Close Family Murdered Encounter With Nazi Officials Never Finding Out Polenaktion Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany See Locations Full Text Berlin, October 28, 1938: Betty Bloom's father Joseph Schütz is deported back to Poland as part of the Polenaktion: Unfortunately, at 6am, there was a knock on the door & two Gestapo officers marched in & arrested my father. He didn't even have time to say goodbye to us. They took him down the stairs. He was on the first transport of Polish Jews to—you know—deported from Berlin to a place on the Polish border. The Poles wouldn't let him in. They were left there in October without any clothes, without anything, without any heating, for months. They couldn't go back; they couldn't go forward until the Poles eventually relented & let them into Poland. My father made contact with his family. In Poland he went first to stay with his mother in a place called Nowy Sącz, not far from Jaslo near the Czech border. I don't know how long he was there for. We had one or two calls from him. I had a cousin left in Berlin who sent parcels to my father because she was in hiding but she managed to send parcels to my father which I've never forgotten. I know he ended up in Buchenwald eventually because a survivor from Buchenwald made contact with my mother & came & told her that he was with him in Buchenwald in '44. At the end of '44, beginning '45. I assume he was in the death march from Buchenwald to Bergen-Belsen. 15 years ago my husband & I went to Auschwitz. We searched the records in Auschwitz but found no record of my father. I don't know the exact date that the Red Cross contacted us & informed us that the last record they have of my father is in Bergen-Belsen in January 1945, which to us was the worst news we could have had. Because to survive from '38 to '45 & then to die like this. Now after these deportations to Poland was the Kristallnacht because one of the people whose parents were deported—you probably know his name, a young man, Grynszpan. He was so angry that he killed a German in Paris which gave the Nazis the excuse for for Kristallnacht. Following Kristallnacht, I was very aware of what's going on because even at 7 or 8, at the end of our road, there was a display panel for Der Stürmer—the Nazi magazine. I read it. I read anything I could read. They made, there was a sign on our shop saying "Kauft nicht bei Juden", don't buy from Jews, even before my father was deported. So, I was well aware of what was going on. So then my mother's brother was sending his children to England, on the Kindertransport. And my older sister Ruth started to say we must do the same. 987: Father's Deportation Betty Bloom Adapted from Betty Bloom's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, February 2020 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

Helen Aronson was taken to the Łódź Ghetto in 1941 aged 14: We were taken to a disused prison. People were crying & hungry, not knowing anything. In the morning, Chaim Rumkowski, head of the Jewish Council of Elders of Łódź Ghetto, came to see us. He said: I will try & find accommodation for you but the main thing is to get a ration card & work, work, work. I'll do my best. So the parents of the children started to cry. They said: Mr Rumkowski, what has happened to our children? He said: don't worry about your children because my very good friend, Mordechai Chmura, who I worked with before the war in various orphanages, he volunteered & went with all the children from Pabianice & I know he will look after them. So when my mother heard that, she came to him & said, I’m Mordechai's wife. These are my two children. He said: I'll try & help you as much as I can. I must admit that he did because his power was like the Queen of England. Whatever he instructed you got. The whole thing was to be able to get a little bit more food. So my brother got a job in offices, liaisons between the ghetto & the Germans. Everything made in the ghetto went through these offices & things that came to the ghetto. He spoke fluent German. My mother worked in a canteen which was giving rations every week to people. I was sent to a orphanage in Marysin, near Łódź, a area which is a little bit green & wooden houses, summery things. There I was to look after orphanage children. They were not much older than I was & they all had to work. We made straw mattresses. I used to tell them stories, these kids, about Hansel & Gretel, that when they arrived at the orphanage, it would be made of bread [laughs]. But at that time I was not well, I suffered with various cysts on my body through the change of everything. I was in hospital having something opened when the Germans decided to close the orphanage & evacuate all the children. [Gets upset] I know that when they were loaded on those vans, they were calling my name, something I can’t forget. Also they decided to send old people, so my mother went. My brother had a document saying that his family are not to be sent. But it didn't mean anything. But my mother went from one street to another, to another, escaping them. Then I was delivering lunch to my brother where he worked in the centre of the ghetto. Suddenly out of the blue, lorries arrive, taking anyone at random. I'm in the middle. People started running, I started running, I didn't know where. I ran into a big building. So much screaming & dogs. So I run into this building, I don't know where it was, & run upstairs into an empty room & hide inside the bed with the cover over me. I’m hearing screaming. I hear them enter this room. They're standing near this bed I'm hiding in. And they go. Then I lie in this bed for I don't know how long. Then I looked out very timidly & see it’s dark. I thought: I'd better go home. Meanwhile my brother realised that I’m in great danger. He decided to look for me. He goes to Radogoszcz, the station they collect people, he can’t find me anywhere. He goes home, says: Helen’s been taken. Well, you can imagine my mother, the neighbours, the crying. Then I arrived [laughs]. I don't know, I don't know. It just happened that way, like people say. I gave a talk once at the Barbican. A woman stood up & said, oh, aren't you—what did she say—sorry, or something, or: don't you feel guilty that you are alive & so many people died? For a moment I didn't know what to say. Then I said: maybe I am alive for a purpose because if I wouldn't be here to tell you all this, you wouldn't know. But that’s what I mean. Every hour it was something: the fight of being alive & food [laughs]. My brother had typhoid, I looked after him, he was in hospital. Then they decided to confiscate the whole hospital & he was there. Every day, every minute: a struggle to live but then the [sighs]—how can I say. It’s something within you that you just want to see from one day to another. To survive. The struggle of daily life, staying alive. 983: The Struggle To Stay Alive Helen Aronson 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 983: The Struggle To Stay Alive ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Helen Aronson BEM Read Full Text Previous Memory Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Adapted from Helen Aronson BEM's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, July 2024 • Learn More → Helen Aronson BEM Ghetto Incarceration Near Escape Reunited Telling The Story Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Poland See Locations Full Text Helen Aronson was taken to the Łódź Ghetto in 1941 aged 14: We were taken to a disused prison. People were crying & hungry, not knowing anything. In the morning, Chaim Rumkowski, head of the Jewish Council of Elders of Łódź Ghetto, came to see us. He said: I will try & find accommodation for you but the main thing is to get a ration card & work, work, work. I'll do my best. So the parents of the children started to cry. They said: Mr Rumkowski, what has happened to our children? He said: don't worry about your children because my very good friend, Mordechai Chmura, who I worked with before the war in various orphanages, he volunteered & went with all the children from Pabianice & I know he will look after them. So when my mother heard that, she came to him & said, I’m Mordechai's wife. These are my two children. He said: I'll try & help you as much as I can. I must admit that he did because his power was like the Queen of England. Whatever he instructed you got. The whole thing was to be able to get a little bit more food. So my brother got a job in offices, liaisons between the ghetto & the Germans. Everything made in the ghetto went through these offices & things that came to the ghetto. He spoke fluent German. My mother worked in a canteen which was giving rations every week to people. I was sent to a orphanage in Marysin, near Łódź, a area which is a little bit green & wooden houses, summery things. There I was to look after orphanage children. They were not much older than I was & they all had to work. We made straw mattresses. I used to tell them stories, these kids, about Hansel & Gretel, that when they arrived at the orphanage, it would be made of bread [laughs]. But at that time I was not well, I suffered with various cysts on my body through the change of everything. I was in hospital having something opened when the Germans decided to close the orphanage & evacuate all the children. [Gets upset] I know that when they were loaded on those vans, they were calling my name, something I can’t forget. Also they decided to send old people, so my mother went. My brother had a document saying that his family are not to be sent. But it didn't mean anything. But my mother went from one street to another, to another, escaping them. Then I was delivering lunch to my brother where he worked in the centre of the ghetto. Suddenly out of the blue, lorries arrive, taking anyone at random. I'm in the middle. People started running, I started running, I didn't know where. I ran into a big building. So much screaming & dogs. So I run into this building, I don't know where it was, & run upstairs into an empty room & hide inside the bed with the cover over me. I’m hearing screaming. I hear them enter this room. They're standing near this bed I'm hiding in. And they go. Then I lie in this bed for I don't know how long. Then I looked out very timidly & see it’s dark. I thought: I'd better go home. Meanwhile my brother realised that I’m in great danger. He decided to look for me. He goes to Radogoszcz, the station they collect people, he can’t find me anywhere. He goes home, says: Helen’s been taken. Well, you can imagine my mother, the neighbours, the crying. Then I arrived [laughs]. I don't know, I don't know. It just happened that way, like people say. I gave a talk once at the Barbican. A woman stood up & said, oh, aren't you—what did she say—sorry, or something, or: don't you feel guilty that you are alive & so many people died? For a moment I didn't know what to say. Then I said: maybe I am alive for a purpose because if I wouldn't be here to tell you all this, you wouldn't know. But that’s what I mean. Every hour it was something: the fight of being alive & food [laughs]. My brother had typhoid, I looked after him, he was in hospital. Then they decided to confiscate the whole hospital & he was there. Every day, every minute: a struggle to live but then the [sighs]—how can I say. It’s something within you that you just want to see from one day to another. To survive. The struggle of daily life, staying alive. 983: The Struggle To Stay Alive Helen Aronson BEM Adapted from Helen Aronson BEM's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, July 2024 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts