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Ruth Rogoff Read full biography at The AJR / Refugee Voices Testimony Archive Memories 927: The Wonderful Thing Ruth Rogoff My father was a courier for getting people out of Germany & over the border into Czechoslovakia, illegally. One day he was betrayed... Read Full Memory Previous Person Next Person

Stephen Nagy Read full biography at The AJR / Refugee Voices Testimony Archive Memories 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 Previous Person Next Person

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

947: The End Of The Gallery Tom Heinemann Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Munich, prewar: Tom Heinemann's family, international art dealers, run Galerie Heinemann: My grandmother ran the business until 1938. Franziska Heinemann, known as Mimi. She ran the gallery very successfully. Then she got arrested on some trumped up currency charges and put into prison. They broke into her flat, stole all the paintings. She paid, somebody told me, a million marks ransom in return for an exit visa. But was told she's got to sell the gallery, it had to be Aryanised. The man who bought it was actually a member of staff. A Mr Zinckgraf, who had been with them for 40 years. The German authorities were very suspicious but eventually passed it. Now, Zinckgraf didn't have the money. But he had a backer, a director of the Reichsbank, who had the money. He gave him the money to buy the gallery for flumpence, ha’penny, in return for profit sharing. The gallery was then changed to Galerie Lenbachplatz, because it couldn't be called Galerie Heinemann anymore. Zinckgraf carried on from 1938 until he died in 1954. When my father returned to Germany he did a deal with him. But he let him carry on. Mr Zinckgraf was a decent man. When he died, everything was auctioned off & that was the end of everything. In 1938 Tom & his parents escaped to Switzerland, where they had a gallery in Lucerne. I was just told I was going to fly to Zurich. So exciting. On the flight, since I was the only child there, the pilot asked me to come to the front & I sat on the co-pilot seat. This was a Hungarian airline. Jews weren't allowed to fly on what was Lufthansa in those days. Tom has many memories of the Galerie Heinemann in Munich before it was seized: In 1902 they had a big house built in Lenbachplatz. The gallery was on the ground floor & mezzanine. Above that my grandparents lived. We lived on the top floor. My grandmother was a chainsmoker. She smoked over 100 cigarettes a day. I can remember this thick smoke in her office, everything stinking of cigarettes. She always had a big dog. I used to run up & down the gallery as a child. I used to enjoy that. There was a courtyard at the back, & a goods lift there. That went down into the basement. There was a carpenter shop there. They had a full-time cabinet maker, who made picture frames & packing cases for sending them all over the place. I loved to go down there as a child & mess about. He tried to teach me some woodwork. There was a big balcony the width of the building. I would run up & down on the tricycle there. I could look down on the Lenbachplatz. I loved doing that, watching the world go by. I remember the big Nazi parades with music. Of course I thought it was very exciting. All these bands in brown & black with flags. Hitler was very often in Munich. They pulled down the synagogue well before Kristallnacht. It was said, because Hitler, when he came to the Braune Haus, from the station he had to drive past the synagogue. And he hated it so much that he told them, ‘Pull that bloody thing down.’ My grandparents were founder members. I’ve still got their receipt with the number of the Betstuhl [seat in the synagogue], as they call it. Eventually, the gallery building was pulled down. The facade is still there, because there was Denkmalschutz [protection order]. But behind, there’s an office block now, there's nothing there anymore now of the old gallery. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Tom Heinemann's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, October 2023 • Learn More → Tom Heinemann Business Seized Dismissed From Job Encounter With Nazi Officials Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

Isle Of Man Internment Memories 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 Previous Experience Next Experience

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 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 970: Mother's Death At Our Liberation ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Mirjam Finkelstein Read Full Text Previous Memory Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close 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

Bea Green MBE went to secondary school in Munich: There were two girls who often turned up with their BDM—their Hitler Youth uniform. I stayed clear of them. One of them found me after the war. There were five Jewish girls in a class of 40. The five of us were in a little bunch. The other 35 were in their larger circle. It didn’t bother us, it kind of seemed normal & it didn’t mean that I didn’t talk to the others ever. I didn't think about them until the article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung about the Kindertransport & my visit to Munich. She read this article & rang the editor who gave her the address of the woman who wrote the article who rang me up & said could she–I said yes, you can give her my address. So she didn’t want to wait to write, she got onto directory enquiries & got my telephone number. The telephone rings: “Is that Mrs Green?” This is in German. “Ja.” I’ll tell it in English. “Were you the Beate Siegel?” Yes. Ah, she said. I remember, you were sitting in the front row by the door & you used to go & look out for the teacher. When he or she came, you used to dash back into the classroom & say: “Er kommt, er kommt” “He’s coming, he’s coming” But you were so quick that you were sitting down before he actually came to the door & I admired that because it was so courageous. After all this I said to her, but who are you? She told me her name. Now, the next bit came straight out, without going through the filter of my head, came straight out from wherever my soul is: 'But why are you ringing me I thought you were a Nazi?' Boom. Moment silence. Then she said: how can you say that, I was so shy. 'But you used to turn up in your BDM uniform'. Then she said that there was a good reason for that: 'I can explain it.' Her explanation was that her father was a civil servant accused of anti-Hitler sentiments, so she was making up for it. And I believe her, she’s decent. She said, but “Ich hab’ die Treffen immer geschwänzt”: I always played truant when it came to the meetings of the Hitler Youth by saying I have to practise my piano. She is now a professional pianist. You know, it rang true, I believe her, & we are in touch even now. When you hear stories like that, you get a view of history where you have to distinguish between the real bastards & those that kept quiet when they shouldn’t & those who kept quiet when they perhaps had no choice. She told me a good story also about the Director of my school. During the war, after I'd left & was in England, in German schools, whenever Hitler made a speech, all the children had to listen to the speech, so they were all taken into the big assembly hall. She told me the director had a pact with the janitor who fiddled with the radio. It crackled & crackled. The janitor would say every time “Sorry but the radio’s broken” & they all clapped & went back to the classroom, never listening to Hitler’s speech. Little anti-Nazi tricks & a director who was courageous enough to do it & a janitor who worked with him. And the girls who didn’t object or didn’t go home & denounce the director. So this went on in Germany throughout the war. 966: I Thought You Were A Nazi Bea Green 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 966: I Thought You Were A Nazi ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Bea Green MBE Read Full Text Previous Memory Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Bea Green MBE 's interview with Sharon Rappaport for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, June 2006 • Learn More → Bea Green MBE Hitler Youth Resistance Reunited Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany See Locations Full Text Bea Green MBE went to secondary school in Munich: There were two girls who often turned up with their BDM—their Hitler Youth uniform. I stayed clear of them. One of them found me after the war. There were five Jewish girls in a class of 40. The five of us were in a little bunch. The other 35 were in their larger circle. It didn’t bother us, it kind of seemed normal & it didn’t mean that I didn’t talk to the others ever. I didn't think about them until the article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung about the Kindertransport & my visit to Munich. She read this article & rang the editor who gave her the address of the woman who wrote the article who rang me up & said could she–I said yes, you can give her my address. So she didn’t want to wait to write, she got onto directory enquiries & got my telephone number. The telephone rings: “Is that Mrs Green?” This is in German. “Ja.” I’ll tell it in English. “Were you the Beate Siegel?” Yes. Ah, she said. I remember, you were sitting in the front row by the door & you used to go & look out for the teacher. When he or she came, you used to dash back into the classroom & say: “Er kommt, er kommt” “He’s coming, he’s coming” But you were so quick that you were sitting down before he actually came to the door & I admired that because it was so courageous. After all this I said to her, but who are you? She told me her name. Now, the next bit came straight out, without going through the filter of my head, came straight out from wherever my soul is: 'But why are you ringing me I thought you were a Nazi?' Boom. Moment silence. Then she said: how can you say that, I was so shy. 'But you used to turn up in your BDM uniform'. Then she said that there was a good reason for that: 'I can explain it.' Her explanation was that her father was a civil servant accused of anti-Hitler sentiments, so she was making up for it. And I believe her, she’s decent. She said, but “Ich hab’ die Treffen immer geschwänzt”: I always played truant when it came to the meetings of the Hitler Youth by saying I have to practise my piano. She is now a professional pianist. You know, it rang true, I believe her, & we are in touch even now. When you hear stories like that, you get a view of history where you have to distinguish between the real bastards & those that kept quiet when they shouldn’t & those who kept quiet when they perhaps had no choice. She told me a good story also about the Director of my school. During the war, after I'd left & was in England, in German schools, whenever Hitler made a speech, all the children had to listen to the speech, so they were all taken into the big assembly hall. She told me the director had a pact with the janitor who fiddled with the radio. It crackled & crackled. The janitor would say every time “Sorry but the radio’s broken” & they all clapped & went back to the classroom, never listening to Hitler’s speech. Little anti-Nazi tricks & a director who was courageous enough to do it & a janitor who worked with him. And the girls who didn’t object or didn’t go home & denounce the director. So this went on in Germany throughout the war. 966: I Thought You Were A Nazi Bea Green MBE Edited from Bea Green MBE 's interview with Sharon Rappaport for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, June 2006 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

962: Speaking German With An English Accent 1944: Charles Danson, a Berlin-born British Army tank gunner & wireless operator, sees action in the Battle of Arnehm: Charles Danson 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 Charles Danson's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, June 2003 • Learn More → Charles Danson British Army Helped By Non-Jews Near Escape Prisoner Of War Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany See Locations Full Text 1944: Charles Danson, a Berlin-born British Army tank gunner & wireless operator, sees action in the Battle of Arnhem: The gunner & wireless operator used to change over. I'd been the wireless operator for quite some time, so I said to my comrade ‘Let’s change over now’. He said ‘It’s getting late, don’t let’s bother now, it will soon get dark anyway, then we go back’. I said ‘I’m happy & willing to change with you’. ‘No’, he said, ‘Let’s leave it as it is’. The lieutenant gave the orders to advance. An anti-tank gun had been firing all day. But it stopped firing. So they told us to advance, & no sooner did we advance, that anti-tank gun opened fire. The tank was hit, there were huge flames. I jumped out. The gunner, who hadn’t wanted to change with me was killed outright. If we had changed it would have been me. The commander was killed outright, the driver was also injured. We jumped out. As soon as we jumped out the tank went up in flames, & I felt something sort of streaming down here, & could see a bit of blood, but you are of course in shock so I didn’t pay much attention to it. We sat somewhere for half an hour, the firing died down, I thought I could recall where the other tanks were. I said to my comrade in arms—he hadn't died, was either asleep or fainted or something—I said to him ‘I will see if I can find our tanks, so that we can rejoin. So I started crawling forward because I was also injured in my leg & finger & eye. I started crawling forward. Suddenly, the little bush in front of me opened, & two German officers emerged holding their pistol at me. There’s no use being a hero in situations like that. I put my hands up & was taken prisoner. One officer said ‘What’s the matter with his eye?’ The other said ‘Das Aug’is pfutsch’, that eye is gone. I had a terrible headache & said to one of the officers, in English of course, ‘I’ve got a terrible headache, I’d like an aspirin’. He said to his fellow officer: ‘Have you got an aspirin?’ The other one said: ‘No, I’ve got a peppermint’, in German ‘Give him that, he won’t know the difference’. Of course I understood every word. They put me in the sidecar & started driving away. I must have fallen asleep. The next thing I remember: sitting in a train between the two officers. We pulled up at the station, I looked out. The sign said: ‘Hameln. Willkommen in der Rattenfängerstadt’. Hamelin, welcome to the city of ratcatchers. I was very scared they'd find out I was a German Jew. We got to Düsseldorf, they took me to an army hospital. I was the only English prisoner of war. An eye surgeon came in to examine me. He told me that that eye had gone, that he had to do something to remove what was left & that the next morning I had to have an operation. The next morning, the eye surgeon, I will never forget his name, Dr Hoffmann, came in & said in German ‘Good morning, let me look at you’. I answered in English. He said ‘No, no, no, Mr Danson, you can speak German perfectly well: you spoke German in your anaesthetic. With an English accent, of course’. It flashed through my mind immediately: this man cannot be a Nazi, nobody speaks his mother tongue with a foreign accent. So by that he gave me to understand, that if I spoke German, ever, I should continue to do so with an English accent. I was in that hospital for several days. They very kindly arranged for me to have an artificial eye fitted. If it hadn’t been done the socket would have shrunk, I would have never been able to get one in. Then I was sent to a German prisoner of war camp. It was called Fallingbostel, Stalag 11B, in the Lüneburg Heath, very lovely surroundings, actually. I stayed there until we were liberated by the Desert Rats in April 45. 962: Speaking German With An English Accent Charles Danson Edited from Charles Danson's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, June 2003 • 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

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

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

953: Slave Labour In Ravensbrück September 6, 1944: Selma van de Perre is imprisoned in Ravensbrück for her part in the Dutch resistance: Selma van de Perre 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 Selma van de Perre's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, August 2020 • Learn More → Selma van de Perre Encounter With Nazi Officials False Identity Near Escape Ravensbrück Resistance Slave Labourer Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany See Locations Full Text September 6, 1944: Selma van de Perre is imprisoned in Ravensbrück for her part in the Dutch resistance: They transported us to Ravensbrück. Terrible. Screaming, shouting, dogs & whips. The dogs had the same clothes as the soldiers. Same green-grey colour material. They even wore hats. We were marched to the main camp & put in tents. Selma was there under a non-Jewish false identity & called herself Margarete van der Kuit. No one knew that she was Jewish. It was a lice colony. Within a few weeks everybody was full of lice. We were taken in fives to the shower, made to strip, give up all your clothes. Then the doctor’s investigation. I can’t remember if he had gloves on. But he didn’t wash his hands at least. I was given a very thin blue-grey striped prison dress. That was all. And some wooden shoes. No underwear or anything. But in the barracks they gave me my jumper back. We each had a hollow flannel which we hung at the end of our bunk with a toothbrush & toothpaste in. When we woke up, it had disappeared. Stolen by other women. We learned later on that was quite a normal thing to do. In Ravensbrück, Selma was forced to work as a Siemens slave labourer: You had to solder very fine wire together. At the start I was so nervous I fainted. One evening I couldn’t get up from the loo. My tummy was completely out of order. We were given what they called ‘soup’: water with a few grass sprits in it & that was it. No wonder I was ill. So an SS came & started beating me with his belt, with all these iron things on it. So I fainted again. These two girls had to pick me up & hold me up while he was counting. Then they took me to the hospital barrack for 4 days. Then I went back to Siemens. One day we were told to stand outside the barrack, & they told us that the old women over 50 didn’t have to work anymore, & were to be given better food etc. They were taken to the Jugend camp in Uckermark. We later heard that they were gassed & killed. In October it got very cold. Someone said to me 'There's a Jewish woman who works in the textile barrack. She wants bread for her children. She’ll give you some warm clothes.” So I saved up the week’s sliced bread & went to see her. She gave me a man's long johns. They kept me warm the whole time I was in Ravensbrück. Fantastic. There were so many nationalities there. Polish, Slovaks, Czech, Dutch, French. But no more Jews in the Siemens barracks. They'd all been deported to Auschwitz by then. By then we slept in the Siemens barracks. Better conditions: only two in a bed. Three tiers mind you. But no dogs & no big SS fellows screaming away. Selma was liberated by the Swedish Red Cross on 23 April 1945. We were told to stand outside the Siemens barrack. We thought we’d get the same treatment as the old people a few months beforehand. You couldn’t flee because there were Germans on the side of you with dogs. Then we passed Uckermark, luckily & got to the big camp. We were very pleased in a way, but still scared because what’s going to happen! Every day we thought we’d be taken out because we knew they were killing women. You could smell it. The crematorium was going all the time. One day my Czech friend said 'You’re going to be freed Marga: you've got a Red Cross parcel.' So, we said, “Well we hope so.” I gave her a piece of bread, biscuits, & some sausage. She had been very good to me. We then stood outside. That was morning. Nothing came for a while. In the afternoon suddenly a little sportscar came. Out jumped a young Swede. He told us Count Bernadotte was coming with white buses to drive us to Sweden. But the buses didn’t come. We stood there the whole night. Suddenly military trucks came. We were told to jump in. A friend & I fought for the seat next to the driver, ‘cause we wanted to see. The driver said, “We’ll stop in an hour’s time, then you can change.” So I went with my friend in the next truck. After an hour we stopped in a beautiful wood. We were given chocolate & sandwiches & drinks & so by the drivers who had it all ready for us. Beautiful flowers & beginning of the pale green that comes out in the spring. So wonderful to sit there in freedom. Suddenly there were shots. The drivers said, “Leave everything, come quickly back in the truck." So we went in & I wanted to sit next to the driver. But my friend fought with me again, so I had to let her sit, because my friend Dit pulled me back to the other truck. Lo & behold, the truck I should have sat in, was shot. The woman & the driver were shot—by the Allies. They thought they were German. And I was saved again. 953: Slave Labour In Ravensbrück Selma van de Perre Edited from Selma van de Perre's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, August 2020 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts