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See all memories and survivor stories Memories 971: Equalising What Happened Dr Charlotte Feldman They used to demonstrate in the street below us. They used to shout, ‘Jews to Palestine!’ I had a very happy childhood... 972: Discovering My Brother Was Alive Mala Tribich MBE One day I got a letter from my brother Ben. We were in this stately home with all its beauty, I opened it, I read it & was so excited... 973: The Puzzle & The Blanks Jacques Weisser BEM I should've delved more into it, asking questions. But most of the time after the war I wasn't with my father... 974: How To Recover Susan Pollack OBE It took a long time for me to strengthen my own needs. I made a friend & she made a very big, deep impression on me. A shared nightmare... 975: Life In A Siberian Labour Camp Izak Wiesenfeld We were taken by lorries into the forest, to a huge barrack. The first speech: “You will never get out of here, here you will die..." 976: Taking What Was Thrown At Me Hannah Wurzburger It's a bottomless pit. So absolutely appalling. Children are so vulnerable. Especially when they're separated from their family... 977: The Cruel Guardian Maria Ault My first guardians were fine. But when we were evacuated we stayed with a very, very, very, very bad person who used to hit us... 978: Hitler On The Loudspeakers Simon Jochnowitz I remember Hitler on all the loudspeakers everywhere. You couldn’t escape it. I remember being in bed & saying “Oh I can’t sleep, I can't sleep... 979: Sitting Through That Bronia Snow My parents always discussed everything. But not a word was spoken about my going to England. So I found myself one fine day... 980: Getting Streetwise Margot Harris When we were packing for England, the Gestapo came & went through all the cutlery drawers & took the silver cutlery & this & that... 981: 4th of the 4th, 1944 Jack Cynamon My first recollection is aeroplanes in the sky in Brussels. One morning the sky was full of aeroplanes. There must have been 60... 982: Not Dwelling On Things Gerta Regensburger I have no feelings & not many memories. I’m not a very retrospective person. It always amazes me that so many people remember... 983: The Struggle To Stay Alive Helen Aronson BEM We were taken to a disused prison. People were crying & hungry, not knowing anything. In the morning, Chaim Rumkowski came... 984: The Attack On Our School Albert Lester I was playing with a little car in the common room when there was this huge commotion, children were running, screaming... 985: Black Heart Outside The Flat Miriam Freedman It's difficult. Children feel very protected. Everything goes well. Then all of a sudden you see terrible things, like people disappearing... 986: The End of Łódź Ghetto Helen Aronson BEM In 1944, the ghetto was closed, everybody sent to camps. But the Germans decided: there's still some money to be made... 987: Father's Deportation Betty Bloom Unfortunately, at 6am, there was a knock on the door & two Gestapo officers marched in & arrested my father... 988: Getting Up From The Dust Ivor Perl BEM I was only 12 when I was taken to Auschwitz. I feel very, very hurt that I haven’t got many memories of my family... 989: Buying Sauerkraut & Soap Eva Mendelsson When you're a child, when nasty things happen, you remember. It makes a tremendous impression, even if you don’t quite understand... 990: The Shock Marianne Summerfield BEM My father was asked to report to Nazi headquarters. Stupidly, although my mother told him not to, he just walked into it... 991: My Ransacked School Ruth Jackson For the Nazis, you didn’t have to do anything wrong, you just had to be Jewish. On the day before Kristallnacht, the Nazi Youth went round... 992: Chickenpox Bridget Newman I was stuck. Then one day, the doorbell rang: a Gestapo. He came in, he was really rather nice. He had white hair & a big, white moustache... 993: Jews Not Welcome Ruth Jackson One thing stands out in my mind. I went shopping with my mother & saw a man in front of me with a swastika burnt into his skull... 994: Grass Snakes At The Beacon Lilly Lampert All I know: I wanted to come to England to be with my sister Gertie. I didn't know I wasn't going to see my parents again... 995: Father's Shop Harry Bibring BEM It was perfectly OK to try & obtain Jewish property by purchasing it at a peppercorn price... 996: How To Hide In Berlin Hans Danziger My father had nerves of steel. Before the war, Jews were obliged to put ‘Israel’ in front of their names. My father refused... 997: My Mother & Father Trude Silman MBE My mother is a question mark. I know she survived ‘til 1944 because we used to get the odd occasional 25-word Red Cross letter, but then it stopped... 998: Red Oaks Boarding School Ruth Jackson I was led upstairs to an empty dormitory & told that the very end bed was mine & I should have a bath & come down to tea. I felt miserable... 999: The Caretaker & His Daughter Miriam Freedman At night time, the caretaker used to bring us food. We sat there, never able to talk, no toys or books or anything. Things becoming all the time worse... 1000: Idzia Mala Tribich MBE Rumours started circulating that there's going to be a deportation. So people were in panic, trying to find ways of saving themselves...

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

987: Father's Deportation Betty Bloom Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close 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. Previous Memory 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 Encounter With Nazi Officials Never Finding Out Polenaktion Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

England London Memories 971: Equalising What Happened Dr Charlotte Feldman They used to demonstrate in the street below us. They used to shout, ‘Jews to Palestine!’ I had a very happy childhood... 972: Discovering My Brother Was Alive Mala Tribich MBE One day I got a letter from my brother Ben. We were in this stately home with all its beauty, I opened it, I read it & was so excited... 976: Taking What Was Thrown At Me Hannah Wurzburger It's a bottomless pit. So absolutely appalling. Children are so vulnerable. Especially when they're separated from their family... 979: Sitting Through That Bronia Snow My parents always discussed everything. But not a word was spoken about my going to England. So I found myself one fine day... 982: Not Dwelling On Things Gerta Regensburger I have no feelings & not many memories. I’m not a very retrospective person. It always amazes me that so many people remember... 992: Chickenpox Bridget Newman I was stuck. Then one day, the doorbell rang: a Gestapo. He came in, he was really rather nice. He had white hair & a big, white moustache... Previous Location Next Location

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

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

993: Jews Not Welcome Ruth Jackson Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Ruth Jackson, Eberswalde, early 1930s: 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. It made a terrible impression on me & I asked my mother why had he done that, it seemed a bit stupid. She said he had been in a sort of prison, that he didn’t very much like the Nazis & he’d spoken against them & he was taken into a prison & they put it in there so that he would always remember that. That made a big impression on me. In early 1933, Hitler came to Eberswalde as he toured Germany. All our windows faced the square so we saw all these people gathering, thousands of people, marching, singing, swastika flags flying, & a podium was set up for Hitler. There was a knock at the door, my father was in Berlin. My mother opened the door & I heard her arguing with a man. In the end she let him in. We were forced to put a swastika flag out of our windows, which of course my mother didn’t want to do. She hung the banner right below, as low as she could get below our window sill. I thought she would fall out. I was hanging onto her skirts. We were told that if we didn’t it would be so noticeable: Hitler would be facing our windows. We put the wooden blinds down but you could still hear him shrieking & shouting. But we couldn’t see him—or I could through the slits of the blinds. When they all went we were able to breathe again, but my parents decided it was best to move back to Berlin. Because you are not so noticeable in a crowd as you are in a small town. In Berlin we lived near the Reichskanzlerplatz, which was duly changed to Adolf Hitler Platz. I was 7. I made friends, the teacher seemed to like me, I got on quite well, until one day my mother was asked to come to the school. I was given a note for her. I was afraid, wondered what I had done wrong, nobody said anything, I was just asked to give her this letter. Well, the letter was for her to come to the school, which she did. She told me I wasn’t going to go back to that school because the other parents objected to their children being in a class with a Jewish child. So that was the end of that school. The second time I had to move. Luckily enough for me, a new school was being built, a Jewish school called Theodor-Herzl-Schule, at the top of the avenue that we lived in. I had to go by tram but that was all part of the fun of it; I made lots of friends. Suddenly I didn’t have to worry about being Jewish because we were all Jewish. We couldn’t go to cinemas, swimming pools, but somehow as a child you to take it all in your stride, it didn’t seem to worry me terribly because I’d got my friends. Then we had to move again. It wasn’t an easy thing to do. You’d find a flat & people would say ‘Are you Jewish?’ We’d say, yes, & they’d say, ‘We don’t want you’. Finally we did find a flat a bit nearer school. There were other children nearby & I was able to befriend them. You didn’t go out to play, you played in each other’s homes. Somehow we just accepted that. We weren’t welcomed in restaurants. No ice-cream parlours any more. I don’t think I looked particularly Jewish & certainly my mother wasn’t Jewish. But we weren’t going to take the risk. Shops would say ‘Jews not welcome’. But the worst thing that happened was this: my mother wasn't Jewish, all her family weren’t Jewish. We used to visit them quite happily, they had children, my mother’s cousins had children who were nearer my age than my own brother & sister. So I used to enjoy going there. One day, we went to this one aunt called Ella. She always made us very welcome but on this occasion she furtively looked round the door to see that nobody had seen us come. Almost pulled us into the flat, I was shooed into the other room to play with my cousin. My mother & my aunt went into the kitchen & chatted, & they were out very quickly, normally they’d stay in there for ages & talk & we’d play. The first thing I noticed in the sitting room was that there was a big picture of Hitler on the wall where the mirror used to be. My cousin said to me ‘why are you looking at that, haven’t you got a picture of Hitler?’ I said, no, no, & what happened to the mirror? Oh, we took that down, this is much more important. I was nearly going to say something when my mother said ‘we’ve got to go. I forgot.' I thought it was a bit strange but I went. And my mother said, I’m afraid we can’t go there any more. They’re going to be in trouble if Jews come into the flat, or meet us anywhere, my uncle would be out of a job, the children at school had been told to spy on their parents. It just wasn’t safe for them. So that was that. So we didn’t see any of my mother’s relations any more. Previous Memory 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 Asked To Leave School Betrayed Encounter With Hitler Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

1000 Memories is a collection of short edited Holocaust testimony remembered by Holocaust survivors and refugees who experienced Nazi persecution as Jews, and found refuge in Britain, before, during or after the Second World War. 1000: Idzia Mala Tribich MBE Rumours started circulating that there's going to be a deportation. So people were in panic, trying to find ways of saving themselves... 998: Red Oaks Boarding School Ruth Jackson I was led upstairs to an empty dormitory & told that the very end bed was mine & I should have a bath & come down to tea. I felt miserable... 996: How To Hide In Berlin Hans Danziger My father had nerves of steel. Before the war, Jews were obliged to put ‘Israel’ in front of their names. My father refused... 982: Not Dwelling On Things Gerta Regensburger I have no feelings & not many memories. I’m not a very retrospective person. It always amazes me that so many people remember... 1000 Memories: Short edited Holocaust testimony 1000 Memories is a collection of more than 1000 moments, events and details remembered by Holocaust survivors and refugees who experienced Nazi persecution as Jews, and found refuge in Britain, before, during or after the Second World War. Here, in their own words, ordinary people recall the hate, terror, violence, loss, oppression, disruption and prejudice they once experienced – as well as the moments of kindness, love, luck, bravery and heroism. They also describe what if felt like to start again in a new country. The memories were originally edited from transcripts of interviews conducted by the Refugee Voices Archive of the Association of Jewish Refugees. The Refugee Voices interviews are filmed conversations between Holocaust survivors, oral historians and trained interviewers. Read More See All Memories 971: Equalising What Happened Dr Charlotte Feldman They used to demonstrate in the street below us. They used to shout, ‘Jews to Palestine!’ I had a very happy childhood... Memory Map Arrested Asked To Leave School Attempted Humiliation Auschwitz Betrayed Boarder Buchenwald Concentration Camp Dachau Destruction of Property Domestic Service Encounter With Hitler Encounter With Nazi Officials Finding Out Food Forced Soviet Emigration Ghetto Incarceration Helped By Non-Jews Hidden Child Hiding In Plain Sight Hiding Valuables Homesick Hostel In Hiding Kindertransport Kindertransport To Belgium Kitchener Camp Liberation Near Escape Nerves of Steel Never Finding Out Nicholas Winton Kindertransport No Longer Allowed Pets Not Allowed To Visit Cinemas Not Remembering November Pogrom / Kristallnacht Polenaktion Pre-war Camp Recovery Red Cross Letters Reunited Saved By Rabbi Schonfeld Song Staying With Strangers Swedish Recuperation Telling The Story The AJR Torah Destroyed Experiences People Albert Lester Betty Bloom Bridget Newman Bronia Snow Dr Charlotte Feldman Eva Mendelsson Gerta Regensburger Hannah Wurzburger Hans Danziger Harry Bibring BEM Helen Aronson BEM Ivor Perl BEM Izak Wiesenfeld Jack Cynamon Jacques Weisser BEM Lilly Lampert Mala Tribich MBE Margot Harris Maria Ault Marianne Summerfield BEM Miriam Freedman Ruth Jackson Simon Jochnowitz Susan Pollack OBE Trude Silman MBE 971: Equalising What Happened 972: Discovering My Brother Was Alive 973: The Puzzle & The Blanks 974: How To Recover 975: Life In A Siberian Labour Camp 976: Taking What Was Thrown At Me 977: The Cruel Guardian 978: Hitler On The Loudspeakers 979: Sitting Through That 980: Getting Streetwise 981: 4th of the 4th, 1944 982: Not Dwelling On Things 983: The Struggle To Stay Alive 984: The Attack On Our School 985: Black Heart Outside The Flat 986: The End of Łódź Ghetto 987: Father's Deportation 988: Getting Up From The Dust 989: Buying Sauerkraut & Soap 990: The Shock 991: My Ransacked School 992: Chickenpox 993: Jews Not Welcome 994: Grass Snakes At The Beacon 995: Father's Shop 996: How To Hide In Berlin 997: My Mother & Father 998: Red Oaks Boarding School 999: The Caretaker & His Daughter 1000: Idzia Memories Austria Belgium Canada Czechoslovakia England France Germany Hungary Poland Soviet Union Sweden Countries 1000 Memories: Background Each memory on this site was originally created as a post for the AJR Refugee Voices social media accounts on Instagram , Facebook and X (Twitter) from 2019-2024. The social media project has ended and this site is its archive. The posts are preserved and stored here independently, as embedded links and full texts. They are arranged by person , experience , place and post order . They are searchable . This site is a work in progress, and the memories are being put up one-by-one in reverse order. Subscribe to keep updated. Read More

986: The End of Łódź Ghetto In 1944, the ghetto was closed, everybody sent to camps. But the Germans decided: there's still some money to be made. So they chose a few hundred people to stay behind to clean the ghetto. My brother, myself & my mother, we were among them. Our job was to clean up the ghetto & still make a lot of money for the Germans Because you went into these rooms, dinner was on the table, nobody was in these rooms any more, so we had to segregate: The furniture separate, the crockery separate, everything in piles in the street and lorries—it was winter. Lorries used to come & collect it all & take it all to Germany. We knew that when this job was finished, we’ll follow the others to the camps. I had a job to clean the offices of the German officials. One of them was Gauleiter Biebow, Hans Biebow, who was in charge of the ghetto. I had to do the cleaning when no one was there, so it was very early in the morning or very late at night. At this time they put us into a different camp. I had a bed with my mother, we had a table & a little—like a Primus machine. We could cook a little bit. But every so often this Biebow, who was a drunk & whatever, used to have fun coming to the camp & few people could die or whatever. It was nothing. It was situated very near the Jewish cemetery. The driver of this Biebow, he was a Polish German. We made sort of friends with him & by money, we knew when he's due to go to the camp, so we used to stay in, don't go out, Biebow is coming, & so on. This chap, for money he was giving details & telling us. The right hand of this Biebow was a Mr Krumpf that I worked for. He quite liked me but I must not be seen, so I had to work at night, light fires, toilets, everything, or very early in the morning. So this went for a while. One day I’m cleaning the office of this Biebow secretary. There is a key in the drawer with a note: My name is Helena Schmidt. I’m not like Biebow. I will leave some food for you in my desk & here is the key, so just look at my desk.' Right, I opened the desk, there is some food & things. One day we decided to meet. Again, not allowed to be seen, behind some buildings. She said, 'Well, I’m actually in love with one of your friends, a Jewish boy in the camp'. This boy said, well, I’m invited to her home in Łódź to a party. He was blond, Aryan-looking, perfect German, so we dressed him up in this leather coat & boots and thing, & off he went. He comes back after the weekend. We said, well? Well, how was it? He said: there were dignitaries in her home, SS men, & he spent the whole weekend with her. Okay. Then one day there's an air raid, & we were told that it’s done by Russian women or something. We were just standing laughing: oh, how wonderful to be killed by a bomb [laughs]. One day—some of the boys managed to have some sort of a radio & we've realised that something is happening with the Russian Army. So one day, I’m opening her desk & what do I see? A revolver. Her note said: Helen, I feel that the war is coming to an end & you might need that. I was scared [laughs]. I was scared to take this damned thing in my hand [laughs]. Then my cousin approached me and said, look, my husband was working on a bunker Tonight be ready with your family & we're going to that bunker, which was actually situated opposite the German Criminal Police. It was winter, 13° cold, we were ill-prepared for anything like this. We gathered our eiderdown, bit of dry food, & off we went. It was a hole made into ground with a desk, & there were maybe ten of us. We went, we sat, we covered ourselves with eiderdown. I can’t hear anything, nothing. Every so often my brother opens the thing, quiet, you can’t hear anything, can’t see anything. Before I went, I said to my boyfriend: 'We don't know what's going to happen but I am going. I'll be – if you are alive, look for me in this area. Anyhow, we're sitting there. We couldn't last longer than a week or so there because we had no food, no nothing. One day, we heard a lot of thumping, big boots. My mother said: I think I can hear Russian. Russian? You must be crazy. My brother very, very cautiously opens this entrance. I’m opening this thing & I’m face to face with a Russian soldier. He says: the war is over & you are free. [Gets emotional] How can you describe that? Helen Aronson, Łódź Ghetto, 1944: Helen Aronson BEM 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 Helen Aronson BEM's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, July 2024 • Learn More → Helen Aronson BEM Encounter With Nazi Officials Ghetto Incarceration Helped By Non-Jews Liberation Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Poland See Locations Full Text Helen Aronson, Łódź Ghetto, 1944: In 1944, the ghetto was closed, everybody sent to camps. But the Germans decided: there's still some money to be made, so they chose a few hundred people to stay behind to clean the ghetto. My brother, myself & my mother, we were among them. Our job was to clean up the ghetto & still make a lot of money for the Germans, because you went into these rooms, dinner was on the table, nobody was in these rooms any more, so we had to segregate: the furniture separate, the crockery separate, everything in piles in the street and lorries—it was winter. Lorries used to come & collect it all & take it all to Germany. We knew that when this job was finished, we’ll follow the others to the camps. I had a job to clean the offices of the German officials. One of them was Gauleiter Biebow, Hans Biebow, who was in charge of the ghetto. I had to do the cleaning when no one was there, so it was very early in the morning or very late at night. At this time they put us into a different camp. I had a bed with my mother, we had a table & a little—like a Primus machine. We could cook a little bit. But every so often this Biebow, who was a drunk & whatever, used to have fun coming to the camp & few people could die or whatever. It was nothing. It was situated very near the Jewish cemetery. The driver of this Biebow, he was a Polish German. We made sort of friends with him & by money, we knew when he's due to go to the camp, so we used to stay in, don't go out, Biebow is coming, & so on. This chap, for money he was giving details & telling us. The right hand of this Biebow was a Mr Krumpf that I worked for. He quite liked me but I must not be seen, so I had to work at night, light fires, toilets, everything, or very early in the morning. So this went for a while. One day I’m cleaning the office of this Biebow secretary. There is a key in the drawer with a note: 'My name is Helena Schmidt. I’m not like Biebow. I will leave some food for you in my desk & here is the key, so just look at my desk.' Right, I opened the desk, there is some food & things. One day we decided to meet. Again, not allowed to be seen, behind some buildings. She said, 'well, I’m actually in love with one of your friends, a Jewish boy in the camp'. This boy said, well, I’m invited to her home in Łódź to a party. He was blond, Aryan-looking, perfect German, so we dressed him up in this leather coat & boots and thing, & off he went. He comes back after the weekend. We said, well? Well, how was it? He said: there were dignitaries in her home, SS men, & he spent the whole weekend with her. Okay. Then one day there's an air raid, & we were told that it’s done by Russian women or something. We were just standing laughing: oh, how wonderful to be killed by a bomb [laughs]. One day—some of the boys managed to have some sort of a radio & we've realised that something is happening with the Russian Army. So one day, I’m opening her desk & what do I see? A revolver. Her note said: Helen, I feel that the war is coming to an end & you might need that. I was scared [laughs]. I was scared to take this damned thing in my hand [laughs]. Then my cousin approached me and said, look, my husband was working on a bunker & tonight be ready with your family & we're going to that bunker, which was actually situated opposite the German Criminal Police. It was winter, 13° cold, we were ill-prepared for anything like this. We gathered our eiderdown, bit of dry food, & off we went. It was a hole made into ground with a desk, & there were maybe ten of us. We went, we sat, we covered ourselves with eiderdown. I can’t hear anything, nothing. Every so often my brother opens the thing, quiet, you can’t hear anything, can’t see anything. Before I went, I said to my boyfriend: 'We don't know what's going to happen but I am going. I'll be – if you are alive, look for me in this area. Anyhow, we're sitting there. We couldn't last longer than a week or so there because we had no food, no nothing. One day, we heard a lot of thumping, big boots. My mother said: I think I can hear Russian. Russian? You must be crazy. My brother very, very cautiously opens this entrance. I’m opening this thing & I’m face to face with a Russian soldier. He says: the war is over & you are free. [Gets emotional] How can you describe that? 986: The End of Łódź Ghetto 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

998: Red Oaks Boarding School I was led upstairs to an empty dormitory and told that the very end bed was mine and I should have a bath and come down to tea. I felt miserable. It was empty and cold and horrid-looking. There must have been 10 rows of beds on either side. I went to the bathroom and sat there in floods of tears. I thought what would my mother be doing now and how did she get back home, and is everyone alright. Tears were just running down my face and there’s nobody to scrub my back. Then there was a knock on the door, ‘would I please hurry up and come down’. So I hastily got out of the water and my daydreaming, put clean clothes on, and a schoolgirl showed me the way down. There were a few girls still there, and 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 and 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 and 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 and showed me the library. The Headmistress then called for me and 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 and 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, and I thought: maybe one day I’ll go there. Then I had to go to bed in this forlorn dormitory, and 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... ...and that there were some children coming from the East End of London, for the holidays. We got friendly, and 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, and Bandwagon. It wasn’t my sense of humour. But what impressed me was that in the interval little trays of tea went round and 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 and 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 and 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 and said ‘You’re to go to London, to another school. So pack your things and 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, and 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, and there was a policeman standing outside our gate, and 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, and Jean called me for tea. I stood behind the curtains watching that gate and I said I couldn’t come. So Mrs Yardley said go and drag her down to tea, see what’s the matter. She came up to my room and said ‘Mother says you are to come down to tea’. I said ‘I can’t’. Why can’t you? I looked out and said: he’s standing there, he’s going to come in for me. So she went down and 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 and he came in with her. I thought: I thought she was a nice person, I thought she was on my side, and now she’s actually getting this policeman in, and 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’, and he gave his name, and 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. 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

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

986: The End of Łódź Ghetto Helen Aronson BEM Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Helen Aronson, Łódź Ghetto, 1944: In 1944, the ghetto was closed, everybody sent to camps. But the Germans decided: there's still some money to be made, so they chose a few hundred people to stay behind to clean the ghetto. My brother, myself & my mother, we were among them. Our job was to clean up the ghetto & still make a lot of money for the Germans, because you went into these rooms, dinner was on the table, nobody was in these rooms any more, so we had to segregate: the furniture separate, the crockery separate, everything in piles in the street and lorries—it was winter. Lorries used to come & collect it all & take it all to Germany. We knew that when this job was finished, we’ll follow the others to the camps. I had a job to clean the offices of the German officials. One of them was Gauleiter Biebow, Hans Biebow, who was in charge of the ghetto. I had to do the cleaning when no one was there, so it was very early in the morning or very late at night. At this time they put us into a different camp. I had a bed with my mother, we had a table & a little—like a Primus machine. We could cook a little bit. But every so often this Biebow, who was a drunk & whatever, used to have fun coming to the camp & few people could die or whatever. It was nothing. It was situated very near the Jewish cemetery. The driver of this Biebow, he was a Polish German. We made sort of friends with him & by money, we knew when he's due to go to the camp, so we used to stay in, don't go out, Biebow is coming, & so on. This chap, for money he was giving details & telling us. The right hand of this Biebow was a Mr Krumpf that I worked for. He quite liked me but I must not be seen, so I had to work at night, light fires, toilets, everything, or very early in the morning. So this went for a while. One day I’m cleaning the office of this Biebow secretary. There is a key in the drawer with a note: 'My name is Helena Schmidt. I’m not like Biebow. I will leave some food for you in my desk & here is the key, so just look at my desk.' Right, I opened the desk, there is some food & things. One day we decided to meet. Again, not allowed to be seen, behind some buildings. She said, 'well, I’m actually in love with one of your friends, a Jewish boy in the camp'. This boy said, well, I’m invited to her home in Łódź to a party. He was blond, Aryan-looking, perfect German, so we dressed him up in this leather coat & boots and thing, & off he went. He comes back after the weekend. We said, well? Well, how was it? He said: there were dignitaries in her home, SS men, & he spent the whole weekend with her. Okay. Then one day there's an air raid, & we were told that it’s done by Russian women or something. We were just standing laughing: oh, how wonderful to be killed by a bomb [laughs]. One day—some of the boys managed to have some sort of a radio & we've realised that something is happening with the Russian Army. So one day, I’m opening her desk & what do I see? A revolver. Her note said: Helen, I feel that the war is coming to an end & you might need that. I was scared [laughs]. I was scared to take this damned thing in my hand [laughs]. Then my cousin approached me and said, look, my husband was working on a bunker & tonight be ready with your family & we're going to that bunker, which was actually situated opposite the German Criminal Police. It was winter, 13° cold, we were ill-prepared for anything like this. We gathered our eiderdown, bit of dry food, & off we went. It was a hole made into ground with a desk, & there were maybe ten of us. We went, we sat, we covered ourselves with eiderdown. I can’t hear anything, nothing. Every so often my brother opens the thing, quiet, you can’t hear anything, can’t see anything. Before I went, I said to my boyfriend: 'We don't know what's going to happen but I am going. I'll be – if you are alive, look for me in this area. Anyhow, we're sitting there. We couldn't last longer than a week or so there because we had no food, no nothing. One day, we heard a lot of thumping, big boots. My mother said: I think I can hear Russian. Russian? You must be crazy. My brother very, very cautiously opens this entrance. I’m opening this thing & I’m face to face with a Russian soldier. He says: the war is over & you are free. [Gets emotional] How can you describe that? Previous Memory 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 Encounter With Nazi Officials Ghetto Incarceration Helped By Non-Jews Liberation Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Poland Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts