See Locations Belgium Memories 924: The Babies Not Sent To Auschwitz Jacques Weisser BEM I have absolutely no memory of any kind whatsoever about the war other than what I have been told... Read Full Memory 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... Read Full Memory 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... Read Full Memory 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... Read Full Memory Antwerp Ardennes Brussels Virton Locations Previous Country Next Country

British Army Memories 928: Goodness Kindness & Helpfulness Susan Pollack OBE I never exchanged a word with anyone. I was on my own, withdrawn within myself. If you'd been found talking to someone, you'd have been shot... Read Full Memory 932: A Cigarette For An Iron Cross Harry Weinberger A very young lieutenant in charge of us told me that the British Army will fight to the last alien, to the last foreign soldier... Read Full Memory 949: Liberation of Bergen-Belsen Susan Pollack OBE We were not human beings anymore. We were reduced to being animals - maybe more. That’s how it was. We were just – no feelings... Read Full Memory 961: Having My Revenge Willy Field I was a refugee from Nazi oppression. I wanted to have my revenge & I had my revenge. That was a wonderful feeling... Read Full Memory 962: Speaking German With An English Accent Charles Danson I'd been the wireless operator for quite some time, so I said to my comrade ‘Let’s change over now’... Read Full Memory Previous Experience Next Experience

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

Reunited Memories 926: Dressing Up As A Gestapo Officer Betty Bloom The Gestapo were coming to arrest a Jewish baby in an orphanage. So my sister dressed up as a German officer and demanded this child... Read Full Memory 927: The Wonderful Thing Ruth Rogoff My father was a courier for getting people out of Germany & over the border into Czechoslovakia, illegally. One day he was betrayed... Read Full Memory 929: Fending For Myself Aged 9 Stephen Nagy I contracted scarlet fever. You had to go to an isolation hospital for six weeks. The fascist Hungarians took over. So, I was stuck in hospital... Read Full Memory 930: Reunion After 22 Years In Siberia Dorothy Bohm My sister was one when I left. 22 years later I saw her again. We had no language in common. No memories in common, no childhood. Nothing... Read Full Memory 931: Let Down Too Many Times Ruth Barnett MBE My mother appeared out of nowhere. Which was how I experienced it: the grown-ups made arrangements & then I was told... Read Full Memory 942: Father's New Woman John Hajdu MBE In each flat it was about 20 of us squeezed in. The area was guarded by the Arrow Cross Party: fascist & brutal. Hardly any food... Read Full Memory 943: The Legless Side Of The Bed Laszlo Roman I was always told I mustn’t pee by the side of the road because someone might see that I am circumcised... Read Full Memory 946: Being Stateless Is An Advantage Benno Stern My father, by a great stroke of fortune, was made stateless by Poland because he’d fled the country. It worked to our advantage... Read Full Memory 952: Interned On My 16th Birthday John Goldsmith In 1940, on my 16th birthday, I was writing an English essay & looking through the window & I saw a policeman... Read Full Memory 966: I Thought You Were A Nazi Bea Green MBE There were two girls who often turned up with their Hitler Youth uniform. I stayed clear of them. One of them found me after the war... Read Full Memory 970: Mother's Death At Our Liberation Mirjam Finkelstein By January 1945 there were rumours. People got quite excited. There was a wooden table, we had to walk past the camp doctor... Read Full Memory 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... Read Full Memory 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... Read Full Memory 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... Read Full Memory 995: Father's Shop Harry Bibring BEM It was perfectly OK to try & obtain Jewish property by purchasing it at a peppercorn price... Read Full Memory Previous Experience Next Experience

Walter Kammerling arrived in the UK in 1938 on a Kindertransport from Vienna, was sent to Gorman's Farm in Northern Ireland on arrival & stayed there until 1942: It’s that type of work that put me off gardening. When you go on a cold, wet January & you get a big bag & are told to pick up half a hundredweight of brussels sprout. You can’t do it with gloves, because it’s all wet & it’s all... You pick it up & the bag’s half full, and you think, “Well that’s probably half a hundredweight'. And it’s so light. The weight of brussel sprouts is... enormously low. I didn’t like it at all. And, oh, when you for instance you have to weed out the carrots. The carrot plants are only about an inch high. The weeds are about three inches high, and you can’t see them. After four hours your back’s breaking & you look up, and you’ve only done about three metres or so. You still can’t see the end of the field. I didn’t like that at all. I liked the harvesting. I liked the work with the chickens. That’s OK - with animals. But on the whole, I was quite happy there. It was OK. There were about 30 of us. Though we lived and worked and joked together, we didn’t know each other. Nobody really opened up. It was like – like- like wounded animals licking their wounds, you see? 965: Wounded Animals On The Farm Walter Kammerling 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 965: Wounded Animals On The Farm ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Walter Kammerling Read Full Text Previous Memory Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Walter Kammerling's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, September 2016 • Learn More → Walter Kammerling Agricultural Labour Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Northern Ireland See Locations Full Text Walter Kammerling arrived in the UK in 1938 on a Kindertransport from Vienna, was sent to Gorman's Farm in Northern Ireland on arrival & stayed there until 1942: It’s that type of work that put me off gardening. When you go on a cold, wet January & you get a big bag & are told to pick up half a hundredweight of brussels sprout. You can’t do it with gloves, because it’s all wet & it’s all... You pick it up & the bag’s half full, and you think, “Well that’s probably half a hundredweight'. And it’s so light. The weight of brussel sprouts is... enormously low. I didn’t like it at all. And, oh, when you for instance you have to weed out the carrots. The carrot plants are only about an inch high. The weeds are about three inches high, and you can’t see them. After four hours your back’s breaking & you look up, and you’ve only done about three metres or so. You still can’t see the end of the field. I didn’t like that at all. I liked the harvesting. I liked the work with the chickens. That’s OK - with animals. But on the whole, I was quite happy there. It was OK. There were about 30 of us. Though we lived and worked and joked together, we didn’t know each other. Nobody really opened up. It was like – like- like wounded animals licking their wounds, you see? 965: Wounded Animals On The Farm Walter Kammerling Edited from Walter Kammerling's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, September 2016 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

951: Passover in Lviv Lili Pohlmann has fond memories of Passover in Lviv: Lili Pohlmann MBE Read Full Text Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Home All Memories About Menu Close ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Lili Pohlmann MBE's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, November 2016 • Learn More → Lili Pohlmann MBE Jewish Festivals Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Poland See Locations Full Text Lili Pohlmann has fond memories of Passover in Lviv: My mother and us two children went every Passover to Lviv to my grandparents, her parents, which was lovely. She was the apple of their eye. We lived in Krakow. So for Passover we used to go to Lviv on the train. It was an adventure for children. There was a large extended family, cousins & so on, & they all had children. So that was quite something. My grandparents were called Hinda & Aba Brück. I was actually born in Lviv, in my grandmother's bed. My mother wanted her mother to hold her hand. It wasn’t in those days that husbands were present at birth, you know. So she went back to Lviv to give birth & stayed for two weeks, then brought me back to Krakow. I remember everything about Passover. Everything! You don’t want to go into all the details; it will take you forever! The journey one looked forward to: Oh, my God, going by train! It was always a fast train. It took four to five hours & always stopped in Przemysl. My mother & father had family there. So they all came out, waited for the train. Not like here today, you know. Waited… with food—with food! This one brought broth, that one brought eggs, this one brought sandwiches 'so that the children shouldn’t starve, heaven help us!' You know. It was great fun! We looked forward to it. We saw these people for the half hour or so the train stopped. They brought all the food & we…[laughing] were stuck with it. It was very lovely. And the same on the way back. Everybody came. Perhaps 10 people. I don’t know—practically the whole family came up [laughing] to see you. My grandparents were very religious, orthodox. My grandfather spent his days praying in the synagogue. On Friday he came home & there was a queue of people waiting to be offered this & that & food. Tzedakah [charity]. My father was really non-believer, an agnostic. My mother had candles every Friday for her parents, you know. My grandmother sent every week a challah which she made & some bits & pieces, some cakes & this & that. She baked, & that came by post every week to have it on Friday. My mother did some praying, my father was the opposite. But they were the most loving of couples you ever saw. He was a wonderful father, marvellous. We were a very, very happy family. Until the outbreak of war." 951: Passover in Lviv Lili Pohlmann MBE Edited from Lili Pohlmann MBE's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, November 2016 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

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

928: Goodness Kindness & Helpfulness March 1945: Susan Pollack OBE, age 15, is on a death march from Guben slave labour camp to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp: Susan Pollack OBE 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 Susan Pollack OBE's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, October 2023 • Learn More → Susan Pollack OBE Bergen-Belsen British Army Concentration Camp Guben Liberation Recovery Slave Labourer Swedish Recuperation Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany See Locations Full Text March 1945: Susan Pollack OBE, age 15, is on a death march from Guben slave labour camp to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp: I never exchanged a word with anyone. I was on my own, withdrawn within myself. If you'd been found talking to someone, you'd have been shot. No place to escape. I didn’t know anyone. Where would I go? Who'd help me? I was very obedient & did what I was told. That was their way, making sure that you follow. I don’t know how we survived, how anybody survived. Conditions were so dreadful. A long, long, long walk. I wasn’t there very long, the barrack in Belsen. Conditions were… bodies all over, dead, rotted. I woke up to find my neighbour dead. I heard shouting when the liberation came. But it didn’t mean anything to me any more. It didn’t matter. Bergen-Belsen was a place of death. Look, I’m grateful I’m alive. I’m grateful that I could survive with an enormous amount of pain. The Swedes were helpful actually, in creating—that’s what music does to one’s life. Music, that was my recovery, help. We walked away, there was no revenge. We walked away, we didn’t commit any crimes or hate or anything like that. I’m glad we did not. We just walked away & hoped perhaps we can somehow build a life, just a little life. I became a Samaritan, that was very helpful to me. I used to take my children at Christmas time to hospitals & relieve the staff from serving tea. We would do it. That I found, for me, is very helpful. I had befriended a number of British soldiers who had liberated Bergen-Belsen. They are my real heroes, who liberated after such a long battle & yet retained kindness, helpfulness. That stayed with me. Goodness, kindness & helpfulness are the driving forces for life. After liberation Susan was sent to Sweden to convalesce. I began to understand that there is a goodness in the world. I don’t have much recollection about getting there. I was in a daze. I thought it must be a dream, a fantasy that people cared about me. I feared that the picture will disappear. I didn’t completely understand liberation myself yet. It had to come gradually. Listening to music every night. This wonderful, youngish man had a very big collection of music he played to us. Lights off, we sat in the dark. And I learned I had an inner life. That inner life was strengthened by listening to the music, because Beethoven understood me. Somehow the beautiful, lyrical music was there. And the darkness opened up like a flower. 928: Goodness Kindness & Helpfulness Susan Pollack OBE Edited from Susan Pollack OBE's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, October 2023 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

Harry Weinberger Read full biography at The AJR / Refugee Voices Testimony Archive Memories 932: A Cigarette For An Iron Cross Harry Weinberger A very young lieutenant in charge of us told me that the British Army will fight to the last alien, to the last foreign soldier... Read Full Memory Previous Person Next Person

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

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