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980: Getting Streetwise Our Services Item Title Two Item Title Three Margot Harris came to Britain from Kassel with her family in 1939 after her father's imprisonment in Buchenwald: Margot Harris 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 Margot Harris's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, July 2024 • Learn More → Margot Harris Encounter With Nazi Officials Finding Out Hiding Valuables Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany See Locations Full Text Margot Harris came to Britain from Kassel with her family in 1939 after her father's imprisonment in Buchenwald: When we were packing for England, the Gestapo came & went through all the cutlery drawers & took the silver cutlery & this & that. My parents had expected this. So, in Germany, on the kitchen wall you had a salt cellar, oval enamel in white & blue. There was salt in it & my father put my mother’s jewellery into the salt cellar. He told us—they always told us what was going on—so we wouldn't look there. They came in with the big hats, turned everything over, the sofas, & they didn't find it. So when we went across the border from Germany into Holland, again the Gestapo came in & they went through all—people were taken off because they didn't have papers but we had our papers. My mother & father [laughs] had put the jewellery into little cigarette cases. In those days little girls wore bodices. We were told to put one case in each of our bodice & we went & looked outside & they turned the carriage upside down. We learnt to smuggle at an early age. So you get streetwise. I had a lovely little girl-friend, Rita. She lived around the corner, we used to go to each other’s houses all the time. We had a warning that we mustn’t talk to any strange men. So one day a man approached us: 'do you want some sweeties?' We ran off quickly because our mums had told us what to do or not to do. Little lessons you learnt. Rita was Jewish. On my return to Kassel they had listed all the people who had lived in Kassel & their fate, if they hadn’t been lucky enough to live—leave. I found Rita & her parents had died in the concentration camp. That was very sad. Another sad story: my father had a bookkeeper who had a Down’s syndrome daughter. He always brought her with when he came to do the books & I used to play with her. I saw in the book, in Kassel, that the three of them had died in a concentration camp. That was sad. It was very sad. 980: Getting Streetwise Margot Harris Adapted from Margot Harris'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

999: The Caretaker & His Daughter Miriam Freedman Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close 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. Previous Memory 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 Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

Hella Pick CBE came to Britain from Vienna on a Kindertransport in 1939 & went to school in Cumbria: The other pupils must have known I was a refugee. I became a Girl Guide & we were performing something in a local church & I was an African chief who got converted to Christianity. I was painted all brown, with dark liquid stockings, which is what people did when there were no real stockings in the war. There were several other refugees living in the Lake District during the war. Three or four musicians formed a little chamber orchestra. My mother took me to these concerts, which was lovely. I don’t think that I had any sort of either special pro or anti Jewish treatment or anything. And not too much curiosity about my origins either. Hella's mother came to Britain on a domestic service visa. She found this job with a family who were very comfortably off. Had a lovely house. But treated her throughout the war as their cook. I had to go into the house by the back door. And if I wanted to swim in the lake, I had to make sure than nobody else was using the garden or was swimming, this sort of thing. It made it hard for me to bring my school friends. Only the very closest friends could be told just the circumstances that I was living in. Which, you know, created- well, I don’t- I don’t know how much a problem it was. I had 2 or 3 very close friends who certainly did come. But it was a curious life for a small child. Going to a school where most of the children came from well-off established families and then going home through their back door. We were ranked as enemy aliens. I went a lot to a lovely village called Grasmere & became friends with one of the Lake artists called Heaton Cooper & his wife, a sculptress. They became my anchor. They were members of ‘Moral Re-Armament’. I used to sit with them while they listened to God & things like that. I loved going to Grasmere Church. I dragged my mother to the church on Sunday evenings. I knew every single hymn. And absolutely loved going to Grasmere Church. [laughs] I dragged her along & she came. So that was the most religious period of my life. I wanted to fit in. 967: Fitting In Hella Pick CBE 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 967: Fitting In ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Hella Pick CBE Read Full Text Previous Memory Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Hella Pick CBE's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, February 2019 • Learn More → Hella Pick CBE Domestic Service Kindertransport Recovery Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts England See Locations Full Text Hella Pick CBE came to Britain from Vienna on a Kindertransport in 1939 & went to school in Cumbria: The other pupils must have known I was a refugee. I became a Girl Guide & we were performing something in a local church & I was an African chief who got converted to Christianity. I was painted all brown, with dark liquid stockings, which is what people did when there were no real stockings in the war. There were several other refugees living in the Lake District during the war. Three or four musicians formed a little chamber orchestra. My mother took me to these concerts, which was lovely. I don’t think that I had any sort of either special pro or anti Jewish treatment or anything. And not too much curiosity about my origins either. Hella's mother came to Britain on a domestic service visa. She found this job with a family who were very comfortably off. Had a lovely house. But treated her throughout the war as their cook. I had to go into the house by the back door. And if I wanted to swim in the lake, I had to make sure than nobody else was using the garden or was swimming, this sort of thing. It made it hard for me to bring my school friends. Only the very closest friends could be told just the circumstances that I was living in. Which, you know, created- well, I don’t- I don’t know how much a problem it was. I had 2 or 3 very close friends who certainly did come. But it was a curious life for a small child. Going to a school where most of the children came from well-off established families and then going home through their back door. We were ranked as enemy aliens. I went a lot to a lovely village called Grasmere & became friends with one of the Lake artists called Heaton Cooper & his wife, a sculptress. They became my anchor. They were members of ‘Moral Re-Armament’. I used to sit with them while they listened to God & things like that. I loved going to Grasmere Church. I dragged my mother to the church on Sunday evenings. I knew every single hymn. And absolutely loved going to Grasmere Church. [laughs] I dragged her along & she came. So that was the most religious period of my life. I wanted to fit in. 967: Fitting In Hella Pick CBE Edited from Hella Pick CBE's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, February 2019 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

978: Hitler On The Loudspeakers Simon Jochnowitz Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Simon Jochnowitz, born in Fulda, Germany, to Polish parents, came to Manchester with his family in 1939: 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”. My mother said, “there’s nothing I can do about it." I remember them [Nazis] going through the high street. I used to go like that with that my hand [Nazi salute] until my sister said, “Don’t do that.” I wanted to be like everybody else [laughs]. In late October 1938, Simon & his family were sent to the Polish border as part of the Polenaktion. They wanted to get rid of all the Polish Jews. They came on Friday afternoon. I remember my sisters packing suitcases. Half were full of books. You don’t think straight. They put us in a van & took us to Kassel. It was the meeting point for all Jews who lived around that area. My father was able to make Kiddush: he had two loaves of bread. It was the first time I saw non-religious Jews. They were very different. Then we went on a train. They locked us in the train. Crazy. Why they locked us in lord knows, because we weren’t going to escape [laughs]. We got to the border to Poland, & a civilian policeperson came on & he said, "no". Because Poles had closed the borders, they wouldn’t let us in, fortunately. Then he said, "you can go wherever you want now." My father just couldn’t take it in, he was so wound up, he just couldn’t take it in. Then we were sent back to Fulda. Of course with efficiency they sealed our apartments, so we couldn’t get into our apartment anymore [laughs]. Simon & his family came to Manchester with help from Rabbi Schonfeld. We took the train to Frankfurt & then onto Belgium. My mother wanted to get off & see her brother in Antwerp. But my father said, “You’re not getting off until we get to England.” So she didn’t see him. He didn’t survive. My cousin his daughter had two children from her first marriage. And those poor children, I think they went to a cinema in Brussels, & they were all ordered out of the cinema & shot on the spot. So, you know, they didn’t survive. My parents found it a bit difficult in Manchester at first. People would ask stupid questions like “Did you have running water in Germany?” At the beginning my parents would say, “It was better in Germany,” you know, everything was better in Germany, but that didn’t last long. We still drank coffee instead of tea, so we were able to exchange some of our coal for coffee [laughs]. I was eight years old when I came, so my German is very rudimentary now. I didn’t identify with anything, so, you know, I basically became a little English boy. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Simon Jochnowitz's interview with Kristin Baumgartner for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, June 2024 • Learn More → Simon Jochnowitz Deported Polenaktion Saved By Rabbi Schonfeld Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

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. 988: Getting Up From The Dust Ivor Perl 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 988: Getting Up From The Dust ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Ivor Perl BEM Read Full Text Previous Memory Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close 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 See Locations Full Text 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. 988: Getting Up From The Dust Ivor Perl BEM Adapted from Ivor Perl BEM's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, October 2024 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

969: No One In My Situation Our Services Item Title Two Item Title Three Lia Lesser came to Britain from Prague on a Kindertransport in 1939: Lia Lesser Read Full Text Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Home All Memories About Menu Close ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from 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 See Locations Full Text 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. 969: No One In My Situation Lia Lesser Edited from Lia Lesser's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, April 2023 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

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. 984: The Attack On Our School Albert Lester 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 984: The Attack On Our School ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Albert Lester Read Full Text Previous Memory Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close 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 See Locations Full Text 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. 984: The Attack On Our School Albert Lester Adapted from Albert Lester's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, January 2024 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

975: Life In A Siberian Labour Camp Izak Wiesenfeld Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Poland 1940: Soviet troops force 14-year-old Izak Wiesenfeld & his family to emigrate from Przeworsk to Novosibirsk, Siberia: 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 & if you don’t work you won't get any food”. I was 14. I had to go to the forest to cut down trees & dry out swamps, difficult work. They used to give workers 1.2kg of bread. People who couldn’t work, or who were too young: 0.5kg. The bread inside was like clay, outside was a bit better. We had no vegetables, fruit, fat, sugar, or anything like this. Because of it we couldn’t see at night, we really lost some of our sight. But when war broke out, in 1941, they stopped all the bread as well. We had to live from what we could collect in the forest. During the summer we had strawberries, or mushrooms & all kind of things. That is what we had to live on for a long, long time. We were there with Russians who'd been there since 1917, since gulags & communism. They helped, knew what was edible. When we got malaria in Siberia, during the 3 months that it was hot—people think of Siberia as cold, that wasn’t the worst, the worst was the 3 months when it was hot, like a tropical country. Then it was like in the Torah, in the Tochacha [Leviticus 26] they say: “In the evening we waited for morning & in the morning we waited for evening”. In the evening when we came home we couldn’t sleep in the barrack, because there were the bugs, & outside there was the mosquitos, thousands of them, & then we waited for the morning. And we went to work in the morning in the forest & every bite you got your hand was swollen & your feet were swollen & you waited for the evening, so it was… it was very, very difficult. For malaria there is only one cure: quinine. Here, if you get malaria, you either get an injection or pills. There, after pleading & pleading & pleading, we got it in powder form. This is the bitterest thing in the world. We couldn’t take it, one Gulag said: get hold of an onion, get one of their thin skins, wrap up this powder in it, with a bit of water. That's how we could take it. But lots of people didn’t survive. Once they became ill there, you are finished, no cure, no doctor, no medicine, or anything like this, so that is how my father died in Siberia, & my friend's father. I was a bit lucky, because although I was 14 I was short, so when my father died I was still able to sit shiva. But when my friend's father died, he didn’t go to work & they put him in prison for 8 days for this. There were about 120 or 130 of us in the barracks & about 39 died during the one and a half years we were there. We were taken once to clear away snow, about 10km from us. We slept in a school overnight on the floor, & there we got some bread, it was good bread somehow. We queued up, with our names, & she couldn’t read our names. Some of us queued up 3 times, we got 3.6kg of bread. We lay down on the floor, it was only bread, nothing else. We couldn’t fall asleep until we finished the whole lot, because for months we didn’t have any. But they didn't treat us too bad. It depended who was in charge. Mazel [luck] played a big, big part in this. We were in the forest, we were free, we couldn’t go anywhere. We had no transport, no paper, no radio, we didn’t know the world existed. Cold weather is actually very healthy weather, if you have proper clothing & boots. A human being can survive different climates. If you take an animal from a hot climate to another climate, it may die. But somehow, Hakodosh Boruch Hu [God] gave us special shkoyach [strength], if I was to eat now what I did there, or walk now on snow with bare feet, I wouldn’t be well here. Whatever Jewish customs we could keep, we kept. No question of eating treife [non-kosher food]. There was no treife there, no meat or anything like that. Although remember I said we couldn’t see at night, because of the lack of vitamins? A Russian said “If you get hold of a piece of liver & eat it your sight will be restored.” Eventually we got hold of one & it came back. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Izak Wiesenfeld's interview with Dr Rosalyn Livshin for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, August 2006 • Learn More → Izak Wiesenfeld Food Forced Soviet Emigration Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Soviet Union Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

964: The Next Thing Is We Were Gone Ruth Edwards Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Ruth Edwards was 12 and a half years old when she came to England from Vienna in 1939: I was on the train and saw my father crying. That made me cry. My mother said, perhaps she doesn't want to go. I said, yes, I do want to go. I remember saying that but not in English of course and the next thing is we were gone. It was a very quick goodbye. Nobody thought that we would never seem them again. I thought it would be a matter of six or seven months and we would be together again. Ruth came to Britain on a domestic service visa. Her parents escaped to Yugoslavia, but were murdered in Zagreb during the Second World War. I got a Red Cross letter in 1945. There was a very good man, a Mr Bloom, who lived just around the corner from us [in Macclesfield]. After the war he used to come in with all the names of people who'd survived. I went through everything & never found their names on it or any of my family names. In 1945 I got an official letter from the Red Cross that they were shot in Zagreb. It would have been nice for them to see me. I know how much pleasure my grandchildren have given me. I used to have the older ones staying with me overnight. I used to take them back on a Sunday to my son and we used to say, "Do you want us to come up every week? It is too much." And he used to say "Mum, you don't know about grandparents, what it is. We never had them so let my children enjoy it." And we have. We have had a very good relationship with all four. It is wonderful, which my parents never had. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Ruth Edwards' interview with Dr Rosalyn Livshin for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, September 2003 • Learn More → Ruth Edwards Close Family Murdered Finding Out Recovery Red Cross Letters Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts England Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

Piotrków Trybunalski Ghetto, Poland, 1942. Mala Tribich MBE is 12: Rumours started circulating that there's going to be a deportation. So people were in panic, trying to find ways of saving themselves. Escaping the ghetto into the forests, in the sewers, into the open. Some had friends outside who’d perhaps save one or two members of the family. And there were people who were doing it for money, saving Jews. My father & uncle, Joseph Klein, were introduced to a man from Częstochowa, a beautiful town about an hour & a half away from Piotrków. This man was willing to hide two Jewish girls during the deportations but he was doing it for money. That was a business arrangement. This man actually came from Częstochowa into the ghetto. He was smuggled in. I remember them sitting around the table & discussing things. He was paid in advance & we were to travel to Częstochowa one at a time with him a week apart on false papers. He'd pick me up first then come back for my cousin. But my aunt pleaded with him that since they only had one child & I was one of 3, would they take my cousin first. He said no, insisted on taking me first. So he came back for me & a week later for my cousin. Now, travelling itself was very scary because if you're sitting in a train with a lot of people & if someone looked at me for longer than a few seconds I immediately thought: they're suspecting me of being Jewish. It was really terrifying. There was actually a reward for handing in Jews, so there were people there on the lookout for Jews. It was a scary journey but we both arrived there one at a time & found ourselves in a big house on the outskirts of Częstochowa with a middle-aged couple. The man who made all the arrangements was their son-in-law, who lived around the corner with his wife & child. These people weren’t particularly nice to us but they didn't ill-treat us. They just left us alone. We were very scared. We were supposed to be relatives who'd come to stay from Warsaw – Warsaw because we would be not so easily identified from a large town as a small town. My cousin Idzia was younger than I: she was 11 & I was 12. She was so homesick she couldn't bear it. She wanted to go home & she was told she can’t because the deportations were still happening. But she said that her parents had very good friends in Piotrków who held all her family's valuables who would take her in. So the man said OK, off they went. I still languished there for what felt like a lifetime. It didn't come into question that she could take me too & I wasn't asking to be taken. On one occasion there was an engagement in the family & they took me with. A German soldier was getting engaged to a Polish girl. I was there with all these people & I was terrified. I just hoped they wouldn't ask me any difficult questions. Another time: a boy about my age lived down the road. He befriended me a bit. He said: I want to take you somewhere really interesting. In Częstochowa there is a church with a Madonna who cries & her tears are real pearls that come. He said: it’s a kind of museum, kind of church. I'll take you to see it. I thought: if he takes me into a church, I won’t know how to cross myself. He will soon discover that I’m not Christian. I was really worried but I had no reason to say no, I don't want to go. So, we went & my good luck: the church was closed that day. It was on a Tuesday, I remember that. Eventually it was time for me to go home. I was to meet my father in a flour mill which before the war belonged to him. Now he was lucky to have a job there. When we got there we went up to the attic at the top. We came in & there was my father but also my uncle, Joseph Klein. He looked at us & he went white. He said, where is my daughter? The man said, I brought her back, I took her back to your very good friends. My uncle said, but she's not there. Where is she? What have you done with my child? He repeated it a few times. I remember him vividly pacing with his hands behind his back, looking at the ground & pacing there & back, there & back, saying, what have you done with my child? That's the end of the story, because nobody knows what happened to Idzia till this day. And not knowing is so terrible ’cos you imagine the worst. And I still keep thinking of what have they done with her? Could they have done this or that, or cut her throat or thrown her in the river or – but, you know, bludgeoned her to death or how did – terribly she suffered. I – it’s just something I can’t come to terms with. And of course, her parents, oh, were devastated. What we heard after the war was this: That she arrived at the friends' house with the man, they collected a case of valuables & she left with the man & the case. That's it. That's the end of the story. But the man—he must have done something wrong because he left with Idzia & the case. My aunt said to me: How could anybody kill a child for the sake of a few goods? I would have given him everything I possess if only he had saved her. She never got over it. Once she said to me: My Idzia had to go into the gas chamber by herself. There was nobody to hold her hand. Those were the thoughts & the visions she lived with. 1000: Idzia Mala Tribich MBE 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 1000: Idzia ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Mala Tribich MBE Read Full Text Previous Memory Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close 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 Betrayed Ghetto Incarceration Homesick In Hiding Never Finding Out Staying With Strangers Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Poland See Locations Full Text Piotrków Trybunalski Ghetto, Poland, 1942. Mala Tribich MBE is 12: Rumours started circulating that there's going to be a deportation. So people were in panic, trying to find ways of saving themselves. Escaping the ghetto into the forests, in the sewers, into the open. Some had friends outside who’d perhaps save one or two members of the family. And there were people who were doing it for money, saving Jews. My father & uncle, Joseph Klein, were introduced to a man from Częstochowa, a beautiful town about an hour & a half away from Piotrków. This man was willing to hide two Jewish girls during the deportations but he was doing it for money. That was a business arrangement. This man actually came from Częstochowa into the ghetto. He was smuggled in. I remember them sitting around the table & discussing things. He was paid in advance & we were to travel to Częstochowa one at a time with him a week apart on false papers. He'd pick me up first then come back for my cousin. But my aunt pleaded with him that since they only had one child & I was one of 3, would they take my cousin first. He said no, insisted on taking me first. So he came back for me & a week later for my cousin. Now, travelling itself was very scary because if you're sitting in a train with a lot of people & if someone looked at me for longer than a few seconds I immediately thought: they're suspecting me of being Jewish. It was really terrifying. There was actually a reward for handing in Jews, so there were people there on the lookout for Jews. It was a scary journey but we both arrived there one at a time & found ourselves in a big house on the outskirts of Częstochowa with a middle-aged couple. The man who made all the arrangements was their son-in-law, who lived around the corner with his wife & child. These people weren’t particularly nice to us but they didn't ill-treat us. They just left us alone. We were very scared. We were supposed to be relatives who'd come to stay from Warsaw – Warsaw because we would be not so easily identified from a large town as a small town. My cousin Idzia was younger than I: she was 11 & I was 12. She was so homesick she couldn't bear it. She wanted to go home & she was told she can’t because the deportations were still happening. But she said that her parents had very good friends in Piotrków who held all her family's valuables who would take her in. So the man said OK, off they went. I still languished there for what felt like a lifetime. It didn't come into question that she could take me too & I wasn't asking to be taken. On one occasion there was an engagement in the family & they took me with. A German soldier was getting engaged to a Polish girl. I was there with all these people & I was terrified. I just hoped they wouldn't ask me any difficult questions. Another time: a boy about my age lived down the road. He befriended me a bit. He said: I want to take you somewhere really interesting. In Częstochowa there is a church with a Madonna who cries & her tears are real pearls that come. He said: it’s a kind of museum, kind of church. I'll take you to see it. I thought: if he takes me into a church, I won’t know how to cross myself. He will soon discover that I’m not Christian. I was really worried but I had no reason to say no, I don't want to go. So, we went & my good luck: the church was closed that day. It was on a Tuesday, I remember that. Eventually it was time for me to go home. I was to meet my father in a flour mill which before the war belonged to him. Now he was lucky to have a job there. When we got there we went up to the attic at the top. We came in & there was my father but also my uncle, Joseph Klein. He looked at us & he went white. He said, where is my daughter? The man said, I brought her back, I took her back to your very good friends. My uncle said, but she's not there. Where is she? What have you done with my child? He repeated it a few times. I remember him vividly pacing with his hands behind his back, looking at the ground & pacing there & back, there & back, saying, what have you done with my child? That's the end of the story, because nobody knows what happened to Idzia till this day. And not knowing is so terrible ’cos you imagine the worst. And I still keep thinking of what have they done with her? Could they have done this or that, or cut her throat or thrown her in the river or – but, you know, bludgeoned her to death or how did – terribly she suffered. I – it’s just something I can’t come to terms with. And of course, her parents, oh, were devastated. What we heard after the war was this: That she arrived at the friends' house with the man, they collected a case of valuables & she left with the man & the case. That's it. That's the end of the story. But the man—he must have done something wrong because he left with Idzia & the case. My aunt said to me: How could anybody kill a child for the sake of a few goods? I would have given him everything I possess if only he had saved her. She never got over it. Once she said to me: My Idzia had to go into the gas chamber by herself. There was nobody to hold her hand. Those were the thoughts & the visions she lived with. 1000: Idzia 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

963: Experiencing Antisemitism Stella Shinder Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Stella Shinder, Chemnitz, 1934: It was when I started school at the age of six, that I had my first encounter. I had a little umbrella with red stripes. A little schoolmate of mine said, 'Is that the blood of German babies that the Jews are killing?' I came home to my mother & said, 'Could this be true?' That was my first experience of what was happening. My mother said: 'Absolutely not. This is not true. You must never believe that'. My father had an encounter with a janitor who called him a ‘dirty Jew’. This man had a stick. So my father took the stick & beat him up. There was never any talk about going. Never. It wasn’t until we actually left in July 1938—Friday the 13th—that my mother—we went on our usual holiday to Czechoslovakia. We lived quite near the border & holiday in Karlovy Vary. A beautiful spa in the Sudeten part of Czechoslovakia. When we crossed the border, my mother said to my brother & myself, 'We are never going back'. So that was it. My brother & I were elated. Because we'd already experienced antisemitism. We were thrown out of our schools. We were spat at in the street. We'd experienced antisemitism quite strongly. We weren't allowed to sit on park benches or use swimming pools. So we were very, very happy to leave all that behind. When we were getting ready, I said 'Mummy why are you packing winter stockings on our summer holiday?' She gave me a smack & said, 'Be quiet'. Because we had a cleaning lady working in the flat & she didn’t want her to know that we would never come back again. My father was still in Germany & didn’t want to leave, because we had a beautiful home. He had a business. He didn’t want to leave. My mother wrote to him & said 'If you don’t follow us, you'll never see us again'. So he packed his bag & he had some money in a briefcase. And on the platform at the station he was so nervous he left this bag with the money behind. My poor, poor father. We never saw it again. So he came & joined us. Then we went to live in Prague, where we stayed for six months prior to coming to England. So. Then we had a small flat which we rented in Prague. My brother & I attended a German-speaking school. And of course we were spat at by the Czech children not for being Jewish but because they thought we were Germans. There was a lot of anti-German feeling in Czechoslovakia at that time. We had a letter from my father’s parents who lived in Warsaw at the time to say there was an aunt, my grandfather’s sister, living in England, in London. 'Write to her, get her to, get her to get you a visitor’s visa. Get out of Czechoslovakia because Hitler’s going to come into Czechoslovakia'. So, we were so lucky, we managed to get this visa. My mother arranged for us to fly to England. Crossing Germany would have been dangerous for us, if we'd gone by train. So we took a flight which landed at Brussels & then another flight from Brussels to London. We landed in London on the 6th of December 1938. Croydon Airport. When we left, my mother used to write to—in those days we didn’t all have telephones. She would write to our friends, 'Leave, leave'. And nobody paid any attention. Nobody paid any attention. There was great antisemitism, but nobody could have imagined what finally happened. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Stella Shinder's interview with Clare Csonka for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, March 2021 • Learn More → Stella Shinder Emigration to Czechoslovakia Not Allowed To Use Swimming Pools Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

970: Mother's Death At Our Liberation Our Services Item Title Two Item Title Three Mirjam Finkelstein (aged 11) spent 13 months in Bergen-Belsen camp with her mother & two sisters: Mirjam Finkelstein Read Full Text Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Home All Memories About Menu Close ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Mirjam Finkelstein's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, November 2006 • Learn More → Mirjam Finkelstein Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp Encounter With Nazi Officials Liberation Reunited Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany See Locations Full Text Mirjam Finkelstein (aged 11) spent 13 months in Bergen-Belsen camp with her mother & two sisters: By January 1945 there were rumours. People got quite excited. There was a wooden table, we had to walk past the camp doctor. He decided who would go to wherever we were going. I don’t think anybody really knew. My mother managed—I don’t know how—to walk upright past him, & we were chosen to go on this transport. Immediately then & there we were taken to the railway tracks nearby. There was a bathhouse. We were told to strip & have a shower. I wasn't afraid but the adults must have been terrified that this wasn't water coming, you know. But indeed it was water. We were told to get out & get dressed, & we were sat on the embankment & were given something to eat. This I remember you see: given something to eat. Then the train arrived, an ordinary train. To me this journey lasted about two weeks but it was only a few days. We stopped a lot because of bombardments. My mother was lying on the bench. It kept stopping at various concentration camps. We were told it was an exchange. I think we knew we were going to Switzerland. Very cold & snowy outside. Eventually we were told to get off the train. My sister said ‘Look we…’—to an SS officer with his high boots who came through in the morning. Ruth said: ‘We can’t get out; we can’t carry my mother out’. He said:‘OK. Stay.’ Eventually we reached St Gallen & were put onto a Swiss train. I suppose we were exchanged, for German prisoners of war who were in America. We crossed the border & they took my mother to hospital. She died within hours; she died that night in Kreuzlingen. She, I think, knew she’d taken us out. She’d got us free—& let go. She was very, very weak. She died & she’s buried there. We were taken up on top of a mountainside & they put us up in a sort of barn where cows were normally kept, but it was very clean & there was fresh straw. We were then told that my mother had died. My eldest sister was allowed to go to the funeral. An officer with a rifle took her under guard to Kreuzlingen to a Jewish family. She had a bath & a meal at the table. They went to the funeral there. I’ve been to visit a few times. My sister came back & took care of us. I don’t think it hit us completely what happened. People cabled my father. Then the Swiss handed us over to the Americans & we were put onto a train with American soldiers. The Americans by then had liberated France. We went down the Rhone-Saone valley, littered with tanks & military vehicles, a lot of battles. We were taken to Marseilles, a pitiful remnant. A few people died when they arrived, like my mother did. There were only about 60 of us. We would have gone anywhere they took us. We were put on to an Italian warship in the harbour, with the idea that we would be taken to Philippeville in Algeria to a United Nations refugee camp for people who didn’t have proper passports. My father cabled & pulled every string. He managed to get permission to have us shipped to America. So we were at the very last moment taken off this Italian warship & put on the Gripsholm, a Swedish Red Cross ship taking wounded American soldiers back home. Oh my, those soldiers were in a terrible state. The injuries of these poor young men, it was really quite appalling. The journey to New York took quite a long time, about two weeks. It was still wartime, we took a very southerly route to avoid submarines & mines. We came into the harbour there to the Statue of Liberty. We were interviewed & interrogated & put onto Ellis Island for a few nights. A prison basically. Then we were taken into New York to an immigration office, and there down the corridor came my father! It was quite amazing. We were asked to swear the Oath of Allegiance & were handed over to him! And came into brightly lit…I mean America was at war but it was brightly lit because the bombers couldn’t reach that far. My father took us to the cafeteria of his hotel. You know, it was as if we’d landed on the moon. Quite, quite extraordinary. But children take these things in their stride. In a way, adults do as well. My sister Ruth for a long time afterwards used to take food up into…by her bedside table. I suppose she felt, you know, any moment now it’ll disappear again. Long time that she did that. 970: Mother's Death At Our Liberation Mirjam Finkelstein Edited from Mirjam Finkelstein's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, November 2006 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts