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See all memories and survivor stories 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... 953: Slave Labour In Ravensbrück Selma van de Perre They transported us to Ravensbrück. Terrible. Screaming, shouting, dogs & whips. The dogs had the same clothes as the soldiers... 954: Arriving In Auschwitz Judith Steinberg We were put in a big school hall, we were all sitting on the floor with a rucksack. They said we are going to go to work... 955: 28 People Hiding In The Loft Rivka Reich We thought going to Auschwitz would be just hard labour. But my father was different. He thought we must escape... 956: Getting To Grips With It Gerti Baruch On Sundays in Vienna my father used to take me to Café Siller, along the Promenade. He used to read the paper... 957: How To Hide In Vienna Father Francis Wahle Letter-writing was timetabled: once a week. But from 1942 onwards there were no letters in reply because my parents went underground... 958: Discovering I Was Jewish John Dobai My parents thought that by changing their religion, it might produce some sort of saving, at least for me. But they were wrong... 959: The Invasion Of Hungary George Donath It was a Sunday. We went to my grandparents for lunch as usual. All of a sudden we see these black Mercedes drawing up in front... 960: The Awful Heydrich Reprisals Frank Bright Two Gestapo men came to our flat & asked where was I at the time. My mother had been indoors. I had just arrived from school... 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... 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’... 963: Experiencing Antisemitism Stella Shinder 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?' 964: The Next Thing Is We Were Gone Ruth Edwards 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... 965: Wounded Animals On The Farm Walter Kammerling 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... 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... 967: Fitting In Hella Pick CBE The other pupils must have known I was a refugee. I became a Girl Guide & we were performing something & I was an African chief... 968: How To Talk Without Crying Ida Skubiejska Everybody was killed in Auschwitz: my parents, my sister, all my uncles, aunts & cousins. Absolutely everybody except my other sister & my cousin... 969: No One In My Situation Lia Lesser In 1939, my father married again in Prague. His wife was called Ola & she was a seamstress. When she came out of Auschwitz she got in touch... 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... 971: Equalising What Happened Dr Charlotte Feldman They used to demonstrate in the street below us. They used to shout, ‘Jews to Palestine!’ I had a very happy childhood... 972: Discovering My Brother Was Alive Mala Tribich MBE One day I got a letter from my brother Ben. We were in this stately home with all its beauty, I opened it, I read it & was so excited... 973: The Puzzle & The Blanks Jacques Weisser BEM I should've delved more into it, asking questions. But most of the time after the war I wasn't with my father... 974: How To Recover Susan Pollack OBE It took a long time for me to strengthen my own needs. I made a friend & she made a very big, deep impression on me. A shared nightmare... 975: Life In A Siberian Labour Camp Izak Wiesenfeld We were taken by lorries into the forest, to a huge barrack. The first speech: “You will never get out of here, here you will die..." 976: Coming To England Alone Aged 5 Hannah Wurzburger It's a bottomless pit. So absolutely appalling. Children are so vulnerable. Especially when they're separated from their family... 977: The Cruel Guardian Maria Ault My first guardians were fine. But when we were evacuated we stayed with a very, very, very, very bad person who used to hit us... 978: Hitler On The Loudspeakers Simon Jochnowitz I remember Hitler on all the loudspeakers everywhere. You couldn’t escape it. I remember being in bed & saying “Oh I can’t sleep, I can't sleep... 979: Sitting Through That Bronia Snow My parents always discussed everything. But not a word was spoken about my going to England. So I found myself one fine day... 980: Getting Streetwise Margot Harris When we were packing for England, the Gestapo came & went through all the cutlery drawers & took the silver cutlery & this & that... 981: 4th of the 4th, 1944 Jack Cynamon My first recollection is aeroplanes in the sky in Brussels. One morning the sky was full of aeroplanes. There must have been 60... 982: Not Dwelling On Things Gerta Regensburger I have no feelings & not many memories. I’m not a very retrospective person. It always amazes me that so many people remember... 983: The Struggle To Stay Alive Helen Aronson BEM We were taken to a disused prison. People were crying & hungry, not knowing anything. In the morning, Chaim Rumkowski came... 984: The Attack On Our School Albert Lester I was playing with a little car in the common room when there was this huge commotion, children were running, screaming... 985: Black Heart Outside The Flat Miriam Freedman It's difficult. Children feel very protected. Everything goes well. Then all of a sudden you see terrible things, like people disappearing... 986: The End of Łódź Ghetto Helen Aronson BEM In 1944, the ghetto was closed, everybody sent to camps. But the Germans decided: there's still some money to be made... 987: Father's Deportation Betty Bloom Unfortunately, at 6am, there was a knock on the door & two Gestapo officers marched in & arrested my father... 988: Getting Up From The Dust Ivor Perl BEM I was only 12 when I was taken to Auschwitz. I feel very, very hurt that I haven’t got many memories of my family... 989: Buying Sauerkraut & Soap Eva Mendelsson When you're a child, when nasty things happen, you remember. It makes a tremendous impression, even if you don’t quite understand... 990: The Shock Marianne Summerfield BEM My father was asked to report to Nazi headquarters. Stupidly, although my mother told him not to, he just walked into it... 991: My Ransacked School Ruth Jackson For the Nazis, you didn’t have to do anything wrong, you just had to be Jewish. On the day before Kristallnacht, the Nazi Youth went round... 992: Chickenpox Bridget Newman I was stuck. Then one day, the doorbell rang: a Gestapo. He came in, he was really rather nice. He had white hair & a big, white moustache... 993: Jews Not Welcome Ruth Jackson One thing stands out in my mind. I went shopping with my mother & saw a man in front of me with a swastika burnt into his skull... 994: Grass Snakes At The Beacon Lilly Lampert All I know: I wanted to come to England to be with my sister Gertie. I didn't know I wasn't going to see my parents again... 995: Father's Shop Harry Bibring BEM It was perfectly OK to try & obtain Jewish property by purchasing it at a peppercorn price... 996: How To Hide In Berlin Hans Danziger My father had nerves of steel. Before the war, Jews were obliged to put ‘Israel’ in front of their names. My father refused... 997: My Mother & Father Trude Silman MBE My mother is a question mark. I know she survived ‘til 1944 because we used to get the odd occasional 25-word Red Cross letter, but then it stopped... 998: Red Oaks Boarding School Ruth Jackson I was led upstairs to an empty dormitory & told that the very end bed was mine & I should have a bath & come down to tea. I felt miserable... 999: The Caretaker & His Daughter Miriam Freedman At night time, the caretaker used to bring us food. We sat there, never able to talk, no toys or books or anything. Things becoming all the time worse... 1000: Idzia Mala Tribich MBE Rumours started circulating that there's going to be a deportation. So people were in panic, trying to find ways of saving themselves...

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See Locations Isle of Man 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... Locations Previous Country Next Country

952: Interned On My 16th Birthday John Goldsmith came to Britain in 1937 after the murder of his stepfather & went to The Leys School in Cambridge: John Goldsmith 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 John Goldsmith's interview with Dr Rosalyn Livshin for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, June 2003 • Learn More → John Goldsmith British Internment Canadian Internment Isle Of Man Internment Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Canada See Locations Full Text John Goldsmith came to Britain in 1937 after the murder of his stepfather & went to The Leys School in Cambridge: I'd been there 3 years, when in 1940, on my 16th birthday, I was writing an English essay & looking through the window & I saw a policeman walking on the grass which we weren’t allowed to do, towards the Head Master’s house. I knew what was happening, because another German refugee, he had his birthday a short time before me, & he'd been rushed away on his 16th birthday so I knew that it meant internment. The policeman came back with the Head Master who was very nice. He said, “I am sorry you have to go away for a few days.” The police were nice, I didn’t finish my essay. They said, “Just collect a few things to last you a few days.” My mother packed a bag for me & we went by car to Bury St Edmunds, to what must have been an army camp. After a few days we were taken by train to Liverpool. From Lime Street we had to walk, carrying our luggage to a huge TA hall, which no longer exists, & on the way there there were cat calls, “bloody, bloody, bloody Germans” etc. Not anti-Jewish but anti-German. They had no idea who we were, that we were refugees, which brings me round to another point which is that the internment policy in WW2 was just as stupid as in WW1. They hadn’t learned any lessons. It was in response to the gutter press. We had an Italian in our camp who had been in the country for 25 years & never taken out naturalisation papers & his son was serving in the British army. Things like that. Anyway, from that TA camp we were taken to a place called Huyton, on the outskirts of Liverpool. The younger ones were put in tents in the gardens. I was hungry. There wasn’t enough food. From Huyton we were taken to the Isle of Man. From there we were taken by train one day in July 1940, no warning of course, to Greenock, near Glasgow, onto a ship called Sobieski. From there we were taken across the Atlantic up the Saint Lawrence River to Montreal. On the ship there was a man I'd known in Cambridge, a patient of my mother’s, a very intelligent chap, a political refugee from Germany, not Jewish. He'd served on the left wing side in the Spanish Civil War & been interned in France & then come to England. Now he was interned again. He was very knowledgeable chap. Also a very much do-it-yourself chap. He found a piece of sailcloth & made me a pair of shorts on the ship which I treasured for many years. They were a bit stiff, rather like denim. But very useful during my internment in the summer. On the ship there were also German prisoners of war. We were separated thank God. From Montreal we were taken to a place by train to a place called Trois-Rivières, three rivers. We were accommodated in a football stadium for a day or two, & we went again by train to a huge camp which was being built amongst pine woods & birch woods of Canada, quite near the American border I believe. The camp it wasn’t quite ready yet. There was one water tap for about 600 people. If you wanted a wash you had to start queuing up at about 2 in the morning but that was soon remedied. They didn’t have the roofs on either, but it was summer & that didn’t matter. I quite enjoyed the camp. We were sent out in groups to cut down trees for firewood. The huts, later in the winter, were heated by wood burning stoves & ultimately there wasn’t enough food there. We did have the Kaiser’s grandson who was a student at Oxford, he was one of the internees. I nearly chopped my leg off once. Then a commissioner called Hamilton was sent by the Home Office, who'd realised it had been really rather stupid in interning all these refugees, some of whom had actually been in a German concentration camp. He interviewed us all individually & offered some of us release. So in mid January 1941 we were taken again by ship to Liverpool. I ended up at the Adelphi to make a phone call to my mother to say I was back. My voice had broken in Canada, I had no money, so I had to ask if my mother would accept a reverse charge call from Liverpool. My mother thought it was probably some poor refugee who hadn’t got any money. Of course she was quite right, but she wouldn’t believe at first it was me because my voice had broken. I told her that the next day I would be arriving in Cambridge & she did something which for her was quite unusual, she cancelled a patient so she could meet me at the station. Only one patient mind you! She met me at the station & we were both delighted. 952: Interned On My 16th Birthday John Goldsmith Edited from John Goldsmith's interview with Dr Rosalyn Livshin for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, June 2003 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

952: Interned On My 16th Birthday John Goldsmith Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close John Goldsmith came to Britain in 1937 after the murder of his stepfather & went to The Leys School in Cambridge: I'd been there 3 years, when in 1940, on my 16th birthday, I was writing an English essay & looking through the window & I saw a policeman walking on the grass which we weren’t allowed to do, towards the Head Master’s house. I knew what was happening, because another German refugee, he had his birthday a short time before me, & he'd been rushed away on his 16th birthday so I knew that it meant internment. The policeman came back with the Head Master who was very nice. He said, “I am sorry you have to go away for a few days.” The police were nice, I didn’t finish my essay. They said, “Just collect a few things to last you a few days.” My mother packed a bag for me & we went by car to Bury St Edmunds, to what must have been an army camp. After a few days we were taken by train to Liverpool. From Lime Street we had to walk, carrying our luggage to a huge TA hall, which no longer exists, & on the way there there were cat calls, “bloody, bloody, bloody Germans” etc. Not anti-Jewish but anti-German. They had no idea who we were, that we were refugees, which brings me round to another point which is that the internment policy in WW2 was just as stupid as in WW1. They hadn’t learned any lessons. It was in response to the gutter press. We had an Italian in our camp who had been in the country for 25 years & never taken out naturalisation papers & his son was serving in the British army. Things like that. Anyway, from that TA camp we were taken to a place called Huyton, on the outskirts of Liverpool. The younger ones were put in tents in the gardens. I was hungry. There wasn’t enough food. From Huyton we were taken to the Isle of Man. From there we were taken by train one day in July 1940, no warning of course, to Greenock, near Glasgow, onto a ship called Sobieski. From there we were taken across the Atlantic up the Saint Lawrence River to Montreal. On the ship there was a man I'd known in Cambridge, a patient of my mother’s, a very intelligent chap, a political refugee from Germany, not Jewish. He'd served on the left wing side in the Spanish Civil War & been interned in France & then come to England. Now he was interned again. He was very knowledgeable chap. Also a very much do-it-yourself chap. He found a piece of sailcloth & made me a pair of shorts on the ship which I treasured for many years. They were a bit stiff, rather like denim. But very useful during my internment in the summer. On the ship there were also German prisoners of war. We were separated thank God. From Montreal we were taken to a place by train to a place called Trois-Rivières, three rivers. We were accommodated in a football stadium for a day or two, & we went again by train to a huge camp which was being built amongst pine woods & birch woods of Canada, quite near the American border I believe. The camp it wasn’t quite ready yet. There was one water tap for about 600 people. If you wanted a wash you had to start queuing up at about 2 in the morning but that was soon remedied. They didn’t have the roofs on either, but it was summer & that didn’t matter. I quite enjoyed the camp. We were sent out in groups to cut down trees for firewood. The huts, later in the winter, were heated by wood burning stoves & ultimately there wasn’t enough food there. We did have the Kaiser’s grandson who was a student at Oxford, he was one of the internees. I nearly chopped my leg off once. Then a commissioner called Hamilton was sent by the Home Office, who'd realised it had been really rather stupid in interning all these refugees, some of whom had actually been in a German concentration camp. He interviewed us all individually & offered some of us release. So in mid January 1941 we were taken again by ship to Liverpool. I ended up at the Adelphi to make a phone call to my mother to say I was back. My voice had broken in Canada, I had no money, so I had to ask if my mother would accept a reverse charge call from Liverpool. My mother thought it was probably some poor refugee who hadn’t got any money. Of course she was quite right, but she wouldn’t believe at first it was me because my voice had broken. I told her that the next day I would be arriving in Cambridge & she did something which for her was quite unusual, she cancelled a patient so she could meet me at the station. Only one patient mind you! She met me at the station & we were both delighted. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from John Goldsmith's interview with Dr Rosalyn Livshin for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, June 2003 • Learn More → John Goldsmith British Internment Canadian Internment Isle Of Man Internment Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Canada Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

John Goldsmith came to Britain in 1937 after the murder of his stepfather & went to The Leys School in Cambridge: I'd been there 3 years, when in 1940, on my 16th birthday, I was writing an English essay & looking through the window & I saw a policeman walking on the grass which we weren’t allowed to do, towards the Head Master’s house. I knew what was happening, because another German refugee, he had his birthday a short time before me, & he'd been rushed away on his 16th birthday so I knew that it meant internment. The policeman came back with the Head Master who was very nice. He said, “I am sorry you have to go away for a few days.” The police were nice, I didn’t finish my essay. They said, “Just collect a few things to last you a few days.” My mother packed a bag for me & we went by car to Bury St Edmunds, to what must have been an army camp. After a few days we were taken by train to Liverpool. From Lime Street we had to walk, carrying our luggage to a huge TA hall, which no longer exists, & on the way there there were cat calls, “bloody, bloody, bloody Germans” etc. Not anti-Jewish but anti-German. They had no idea who we were, that we were refugees, which brings me round to another point which is that the internment policy in WW2 was just as stupid as in WW1. They hadn’t learned any lessons. It was in response to the gutter press. We had an Italian in our camp who had been in the country for 25 years & never taken out naturalisation papers & his son was serving in the British army. Things like that. Anyway, from that TA camp we were taken to a place called Huyton, on the outskirts of Liverpool. The younger ones were put in tents in the gardens. I was hungry. There wasn’t enough food. From Huyton we were taken to the Isle of Man. From there we were taken by train one day in July 1940, no warning of course, to Greenock, near Glasgow, onto a ship called Sobieski. From there we were taken across the Atlantic up the Saint Lawrence River to Montreal. On the ship there was a man I'd known in Cambridge, a patient of my mother’s, a very intelligent chap, a political refugee from Germany, not Jewish. He'd served on the left wing side in the Spanish Civil War & been interned in France & then come to England. Now he was interned again. He was very knowledgeable chap. Also a very much do-it-yourself chap. He found a piece of sailcloth & made me a pair of shorts on the ship which I treasured for many years. They were a bit stiff, rather like denim. But very useful during my internment in the summer. On the ship there were also German prisoners of war. We were separated thank God. From Montreal we were taken to a place by train to a place called Trois-Rivières, three rivers. We were accommodated in a football stadium for a day or two, & we went again by train to a huge camp which was being built amongst pine woods & birch woods of Canada, quite near the American border I believe. The camp it wasn’t quite ready yet. There was one water tap for about 600 people. If you wanted a wash you had to start queuing up at about 2 in the morning but that was soon remedied. They didn’t have the roofs on either, but it was summer & that didn’t matter. I quite enjoyed the camp. We were sent out in groups to cut down trees for firewood. The huts, later in the winter, were heated by wood burning stoves & ultimately there wasn’t enough food there. We did have the Kaiser’s grandson who was a student at Oxford, he was one of the internees. I nearly chopped my leg off once. Then a commissioner called Hamilton was sent by the Home Office, who'd realised it had been really rather stupid in interning all these refugees, some of whom had actually been in a German concentration camp. He interviewed us all individually & offered some of us release. So in mid January 1941 we were taken again by ship to Liverpool. I ended up at the Adelphi to make a phone call to my mother to say I was back. My voice had broken in Canada, I had no money, so I had to ask if my mother would accept a reverse charge call from Liverpool. My mother thought it was probably some poor refugee who hadn’t got any money. Of course she was quite right, but she wouldn’t believe at first it was me because my voice had broken. I told her that the next day I would be arriving in Cambridge & she did something which for her was quite unusual, she cancelled a patient so she could meet me at the station. Only one patient mind you! She met me at the station & we were both delighted. 952: Interned On My 16th Birthday John Goldsmith 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 952: Interned On My 16th Birthday ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → John Goldsmith Read Full Text Previous Memory Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from John Goldsmith's interview with Dr Rosalyn Livshin for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, June 2003 • Learn More → John Goldsmith British Internment Canadian Internment Isle Of Man Internment Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Canada See Locations Full Text John Goldsmith came to Britain in 1937 after the murder of his stepfather & went to The Leys School in Cambridge: I'd been there 3 years, when in 1940, on my 16th birthday, I was writing an English essay & looking through the window & I saw a policeman walking on the grass which we weren’t allowed to do, towards the Head Master’s house. I knew what was happening, because another German refugee, he had his birthday a short time before me, & he'd been rushed away on his 16th birthday so I knew that it meant internment. The policeman came back with the Head Master who was very nice. He said, “I am sorry you have to go away for a few days.” The police were nice, I didn’t finish my essay. They said, “Just collect a few things to last you a few days.” My mother packed a bag for me & we went by car to Bury St Edmunds, to what must have been an army camp. After a few days we were taken by train to Liverpool. From Lime Street we had to walk, carrying our luggage to a huge TA hall, which no longer exists, & on the way there there were cat calls, “bloody, bloody, bloody Germans” etc. Not anti-Jewish but anti-German. They had no idea who we were, that we were refugees, which brings me round to another point which is that the internment policy in WW2 was just as stupid as in WW1. They hadn’t learned any lessons. It was in response to the gutter press. We had an Italian in our camp who had been in the country for 25 years & never taken out naturalisation papers & his son was serving in the British army. Things like that. Anyway, from that TA camp we were taken to a place called Huyton, on the outskirts of Liverpool. The younger ones were put in tents in the gardens. I was hungry. There wasn’t enough food. From Huyton we were taken to the Isle of Man. From there we were taken by train one day in July 1940, no warning of course, to Greenock, near Glasgow, onto a ship called Sobieski. From there we were taken across the Atlantic up the Saint Lawrence River to Montreal. On the ship there was a man I'd known in Cambridge, a patient of my mother’s, a very intelligent chap, a political refugee from Germany, not Jewish. He'd served on the left wing side in the Spanish Civil War & been interned in France & then come to England. Now he was interned again. He was very knowledgeable chap. Also a very much do-it-yourself chap. He found a piece of sailcloth & made me a pair of shorts on the ship which I treasured for many years. They were a bit stiff, rather like denim. But very useful during my internment in the summer. On the ship there were also German prisoners of war. We were separated thank God. From Montreal we were taken to a place by train to a place called Trois-Rivières, three rivers. We were accommodated in a football stadium for a day or two, & we went again by train to a huge camp which was being built amongst pine woods & birch woods of Canada, quite near the American border I believe. The camp it wasn’t quite ready yet. There was one water tap for about 600 people. If you wanted a wash you had to start queuing up at about 2 in the morning but that was soon remedied. They didn’t have the roofs on either, but it was summer & that didn’t matter. I quite enjoyed the camp. We were sent out in groups to cut down trees for firewood. The huts, later in the winter, were heated by wood burning stoves & ultimately there wasn’t enough food there. We did have the Kaiser’s grandson who was a student at Oxford, he was one of the internees. I nearly chopped my leg off once. Then a commissioner called Hamilton was sent by the Home Office, who'd realised it had been really rather stupid in interning all these refugees, some of whom had actually been in a German concentration camp. He interviewed us all individually & offered some of us release. So in mid January 1941 we were taken again by ship to Liverpool. I ended up at the Adelphi to make a phone call to my mother to say I was back. My voice had broken in Canada, I had no money, so I had to ask if my mother would accept a reverse charge call from Liverpool. My mother thought it was probably some poor refugee who hadn’t got any money. Of course she was quite right, but she wouldn’t believe at first it was me because my voice had broken. I told her that the next day I would be arriving in Cambridge & she did something which for her was quite unusual, she cancelled a patient so she could meet me at the station. Only one patient mind you! She met me at the station & we were both delighted. 952: Interned On My 16th Birthday John Goldsmith Edited from John Goldsmith's interview with Dr Rosalyn Livshin for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, June 2003 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

Canadian 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... Previous Experience Next Experience

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... Previous Experience Next Experience

A list of the people whose testimony & survivor stories are featured on the site Albert Lester 984: The Attack On Our School Bea Green MBE 966: I Thought You Were A Nazi Betty Bloom 987: Father's Deportation Bridget Newman 992: Chickenpox Bronia Snow 979: Sitting Through That Charles Danson 962: Speaking German With An English Accent Dr Charlotte Feldman 971: Equalising What Happened Eva Mendelsson 989: Buying Sauerkraut & Soap Father Francis Wahle 957: How To Hide In Vienna Frank Bright 960: The Awful Heydrich Reprisals George Donath 959: The Invasion Of Hungary Gerta Regensburger 982: Not Dwelling On Things Gerti Baruch 956: Getting To Grips With It Hannah Wurzburger 976: Coming To England Alone Aged 5 Hans Danziger 996: How To Hide In Berlin Harry Bibring BEM 995: Father's Shop Helen Aronson BEM 983: The Struggle To Stay Alive 986: The End of Łódź Ghetto Hella Pick CBE 967: Fitting In Ida Skubiejska 968: How To Talk Without Crying Ivor Perl BEM 988: Getting Up From The Dust Izak Wiesenfeld 975: Life In A Siberian Labour Camp Jack Cynamon 981: 4th of the 4th, 1944 Jacques Weisser BEM 973: The Puzzle & The Blanks John Dobai 958: Discovering I Was Jewish John Goldsmith Judith Steinberg 954: Arriving In Auschwitz Lia Lesser 969: No One In My Situation Lilly Lampert 994: Grass Snakes At The Beacon Mala Tribich MBE 972: Discovering My Brother Was Alive 1000: Idzia Margot Harris 980: Getting Streetwise Maria Ault 977: The Cruel Guardian Marianne Summerfield BEM 990: The Shock Miriam Freedman 985: Black Heart Outside The Flat 999: The Caretaker & His Daughter Mirjam Finkelstein 970: Mother's Death At Our Liberation Rivka Reich 955: 28 People Hiding In The Loft Ruth Edwards 964: The Next Thing Is We Were Gone Ruth Jackson 991: My Ransacked School 993: Jews Not Welcome 998: Red Oaks Boarding School Selma van de Perre 953: Slave Labour In Ravensbrück Simon Jochnowitz 978: Hitler On The Loudspeakers Stella Shinder 963: Experiencing Antisemitism Susan Pollack OBE 974: How To Recover Trude Silman MBE 997: My Mother & Father Walter Kammerling 965: Wounded Animals On The Farm Willy Field 961: Having My Revenge People

John Goldsmith Read full biography at The AJR / Refugee Voices Testimony Archive Memories Previous Person Next Person

955: 28 People Hiding In The Loft Rivka Reich (age 4), Oradea, Hungary, 1944: Rivka Reich 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 Rivka Reich's interview with Dr Rosalyn Livshin for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, December 2005 • Learn More → Rivka Reich Food Helped By Non-Jews Hiding Valuables In Hiding Near Escape Nerves of Steel Recovery Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Hungary See Locations Full Text Rivka Reich (age 4), Oradea, Hungary, 1944: Our soap factory backed onto the railway station where they took Jews to Auschwitz. We thought going to Auschwitz would be just hard labour; we didn’t think further. But my father was different. He thought we must escape. People thought that they would go to Auschwitz & come back & find all their riches. My father & grandfather as well. They hid their silver & money in the ground. When the SS came, they knew that the Jews did that so, they interviewed him & they… I don’t know how to say it. They really hurt him, with electric wires. All full of blood. So he told them straightaway where everything was. Nobody wanted to be killed for that. That was the beginning of the terrible times. After that my father was trying to think how we can escape, how we can go. Then he thought: in the actual factory there was a loft with a roof, one more floor, never used, but you could go up. He thought maybe we could hide there. We had a non-Jewish manager, called Appan. He was very nice to us. They offered him a house & my mother's diamond ring. He said, 'I'll look after you, hide into this rooftop. Your wife, yourself & your two children. I'll bring food & look after you for as long as needed.' My father told my grandfather about it, my grandfather was very upset. He said 'Why don’t you come with us to Auschwitz? You will be able to work for us, we are elderly people'. My father said 'no.' My grandfather was terribly upset. After that all the people came to speak to my father. He was considered something quite special in town: very clever, very capable. They came all to him: 'Herr Rothbart, maybe you can think of something to save us.' My father told one person, Yankel Schreiber, 'I'm thinking of going into the loft.' 'Can we come with?” So they came, with six children, so there were eight people. My mother took us for a bath in the Mikveh. Berish Weiss saw her there & said 'What are you going to do?' My mother said 'We are going to hide. Come with us.' Another three people. And it grew. The Schreibers came, and then there was a Mrs Fuchs who was a widow with two children, she came as well. My nanny came and a few other young men who were begging to come. It turned out that at the end of the day we were 28 people instead of 4. Which was a tremendous thing, it was a small area, we could just about lie down, we couldn’t walk around, the facilities were just a bucket & only food we survived with was what this fellow brought for four people. We could hear from the window, still now I can hear it, the footsteps of the SS with the big boots, it was so frightening. But people laid down, because when people laid down they don’t move so much. My father said 'If everybody lies down you save energy, & they don’t hear you either”, at night especially. If somebody fell asleep, if they made the slightest noise, that was terrible, so one of us was always up to see that nobody should make a noise & nobody should move. At night noises are always amplified. Just below we could see them walking up & down, taking the people from the ghetto to Auschwitz. Appan brought chazzer [non-kosher meat] with whatever he had. I was allowed to eat it, because I was 4. If a 4-year-old child starts crying or makes the slightest noise, everybody gets endangered, so I was allowed to eat it. Hakadosh Baruch Hu [God] definitely helped all the way, because I didn’t cry. If I wanted to cry or be upset I cried in a cushion & never raised my voice. I had to learn to speak only quietly. For quite a while afterwards I had no voice. I still remember what they used to cook: if he brought some beans, somebody would hold a pan over a candle. That's how we cooked the beans, you can imagine hours standing there, but whatever food they could get would keep us going. They davened [prayed]. We were petrified all the time. There was not a time when we were not, we never could relax. The slightest noise. Rats crawling over you. I coped because my parents were very loving. We suffered, but compared to what people suffered in Auschwitz it was nothing. I can still feel it, I never talked about it for years. But my mother talked about the war a lot: 'We have to talk about the miracles. We are so lucky we are saved, we are saved for something, not just for nothing. There is a purpose in life why we are saved’. She never took it for granted & all her life she had a purpose in life, she helped people, they both did. In those days there were no committees but all their life they helped all war victims, anyone who was victim of anything. They were there to help until their last days. The group hid for 6 weeks until pressure on Appan forced them to make other arrangements. Rivka & her family escaped to Romania & survived. 955: 28 People Hiding In The Loft Rivka Reich Edited from Rivka Reich's interview with Dr Rosalyn Livshin for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, December 2005 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts