969: No One In My Situation Lia Lesser Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Lia Lesser came to Britain from Prague on a Kindertransport in 1939: In 1939, my father married again in Prague. His wife was called Ola & she was a seamstress. When she came out of Auschwitz after the war she got in touch with me. I didn't remember her at all. I found it so strange because I just didn't know her. I block some things out. But I wasn't going to argue. She came out of Auschwitz on a stretcher. She was very poorly when she first came out. When she was better she got in touch. Evidently a soothsayer in the camp told her: ‘You'll be all right after the war because you'll be able to go & see Lia.’ That's what she told me. So I only know what she told me. But I don't remember her. She remembered me. She was a very nice lady, very accomplished. I've got all sorts of lace, things she crocheted. When I travelled to Britain I had two big suitcases & a label around my neck & I had a little pillow, a little blue pillow, just a tiny one, to put your head on. That's all I had. The suitcases contained just clothes. I wasn't a very dolly person, so I didn't have any dolls. I brought my schoolbooks & school report, & a little pendant of Moses giving the Law on Mount Sinai & a photograph of each of my parents but I didn't yet have the other photographs & the jewellery I got when I stayed in Prague with my stepmother Ola many years later. We spent 14 days going round offices & banks in Prague. You couldn't get your things back & you had to give money. It was a dishonest society. Then Ola said ‘Look, she's going back to England tomorrow. Please can we have her things?’ So eventually I, in a Prague bank, I got what belonged to my family, so I've got them to this day. But it was proper jewellery. People don't wear proper jewellery now. I found out what happened to my parents soon after the war. By letter. I presume they must have been gassed but nobody’s actually told me. Before I used to correspond with them. I've got some of the letters. Then we got letters through the Red Cross. They stopped in 1942. My guardian, Mouse, was very good. She always said ‘I’m not going to steal your mother’s affection. That is your mother’s.’ A very kindly lady. She didn't think that she’d keep me forever. She hoped she wouldn't have to keep me forever. She used to say, ‘If your parents are alive...’ I was staying with her elder sister, Glad, in Banstead, Surrey. And I opened- I think it was called the Picture Post magazine. The pictures in that were, [sighs] death camps, all the pictures. And, oh, [sighs] I couldn't eat certain things after that. I don't think that it really hit home exactly how dreadful things were. It’s hard, hard to think that nothing’s been learnt from the Holocaust, nothing. Well, it’s something you just [sighs] had to accept. You felt helpless to do anything about it. You just– I've always wanted to help people, whatever their circumstances, it doesn't matter what race or colour or anything else. And my guardian, she had seven sisters & a brother. I was always treated as one of the nieces & we're in touch still, & the next generations. But it was very difficult because I couldn't really talk to anybody. There wasn't anybody else in the same situation as me. But everybody was extremely kind. I made lifelong friends. You just have to do the best you can. I remembered my parents from their photographs but apart from that you could only imagine. It’s hard for a child to think that you haven't – I believe my father gave his last bit of bread for a cigarette. That's what Ola said. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Lia Lesser's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, April 2023 • Learn More → Lia Lesser Auschwitz Close Family Murdered Finding Out Helped By Non-Jews Hiding Valuables Kindertransport Nicholas Winton Kindertransport Not Remembering Recovery Red Cross Letters Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Czechoslovakia Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

July 1944: Majdanek concentration camp is liberated by Soviet troops. Rose Lebor, age 4, was there with her mother: At liberation I was four. All the executions, the beatings that they had to watch. These are things that my mother could never bring herself to tell me directly. She was lucky to have survived, but she made her own luck. Which I think some people did. They found a way, a little niche, a little something to say or to do, that would make them survive another day. She managed to get one of the Kommandants to let her out of the camp and go & work in a family in Lublin, who would give her scraps of food. It allowed us to have a little bit more & survive another day. One day at a time. She kept me with her all the time. The roll call, she would put me under the bench, then she would go out. She would stand near German women, that were not Polish, here in prison for other reasons. That probably helped her not to be selected. So it was each time hoping that she wouldn’t be selected. Hoping she can go out & do a little work & bring back a little scrap of food. Having survived such horrors, who wants to talk about it? You really want to forget about it. In ’44, when the war was nearly finished, she said that she realised that something big was happening, because all the Germans were in the courtyard burning documents. But it all happened so very quickly; they didn’t have time to burn the documents. Then all the inmates were put on trains to be taken to Auschwitz. They were emptying the camp in this way. She then pretended that she was ill. That she couldn’t possibly stand on her feet. So she was allowed to go in the van that the German was driving with the seven remaining children. This is really what saved our lives, because instead of going by train directly to Auschwitz, he went by road. And, as they were crossing, outside Krakow, in the woods the Russian tanks came through. So when the German saw the red flag, he knew his time was up. So he took out his gun & just shot himself, next to my mother. And the tank drove into this van, thinking that it was probably full of German soldiers, but it wasn’t. It was the few children & one wounded woman by that time, because she got wounded by all the glass, the splashing that happened. They didn’t know what to do with us, so they took us out of there. Put us on the side of the road. [half-laughs at the absurdity] The tank drove off. They must have gone into Krakow & told the Red Cross. Because they came & took us to an assembly place in Krakow itself, where they put everybody that they could find there, & where later on, people would search for their families. Little bits of bread. That’s all there was. Nobody had much food. A lot of them just died of hunger. They died of overwork, they died of hunger, they died of disease. She said, 'I was ill, but I got over it'. So… yes, surviving was luck, and surviving was also that I had a very strong mother. A very, very strong woman. 950: Liberation of Majdanek Rose Lebor 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 950: Liberation of Majdanek ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Rose Lebor Read Full Text Previous Memory Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Rose Lebor's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, December 2015 • Learn More → Rose Lebor Concentration Camp Liberation Majdanek Telling The Story Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Poland See Locations Full Text July 1944: Majdanek concentration camp is liberated by Soviet troops. Rose Lebor, age 4, was there with her mother: At liberation I was four. All the executions, the beatings that they had to watch. These are things that my mother could never bring herself to tell me directly. She was lucky to have survived, but she made her own luck. Which I think some people did. They found a way, a little niche, a little something to say or to do, that would make them survive another day. She managed to get one of the Kommandants to let her out of the camp and go & work in a family in Lublin, who would give her scraps of food. It allowed us to have a little bit more & survive another day. One day at a time. She kept me with her all the time. The roll call, she would put me under the bench, then she would go out. She would stand near German women, that were not Polish, here in prison for other reasons. That probably helped her not to be selected. So it was each time hoping that she wouldn’t be selected. Hoping she can go out & do a little work & bring back a little scrap of food. Having survived such horrors, who wants to talk about it? You really want to forget about it. In ’44, when the war was nearly finished, she said that she realised that something big was happening, because all the Germans were in the courtyard burning documents. But it all happened so very quickly; they didn’t have time to burn the documents. Then all the inmates were put on trains to be taken to Auschwitz. They were emptying the camp in this way. She then pretended that she was ill. That she couldn’t possibly stand on her feet. So she was allowed to go in the van that the German was driving with the seven remaining children. This is really what saved our lives, because instead of going by train directly to Auschwitz, he went by road. And, as they were crossing, outside Krakow, in the woods the Russian tanks came through. So when the German saw the red flag, he knew his time was up. So he took out his gun & just shot himself, next to my mother. And the tank drove into this van, thinking that it was probably full of German soldiers, but it wasn’t. It was the few children & one wounded woman by that time, because she got wounded by all the glass, the splashing that happened. They didn’t know what to do with us, so they took us out of there. Put us on the side of the road. [half-laughs at the absurdity] The tank drove off. They must have gone into Krakow & told the Red Cross. Because they came & took us to an assembly place in Krakow itself, where they put everybody that they could find there, & where later on, people would search for their families. Little bits of bread. That’s all there was. Nobody had much food. A lot of them just died of hunger. They died of overwork, they died of hunger, they died of disease. She said, 'I was ill, but I got over it'. So… yes, surviving was luck, and surviving was also that I had a very strong mother. A very, very strong woman. 950: Liberation of Majdanek Rose Lebor Edited from Rose Lebor's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, December 2015 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

Munich, 10th March 1933 Bea Green MBE's father, Dr Michael Siegel, goes to a police station to complain on behalf of a Jewish client whose shop had been damaged, is beaten up by the police and marched round Munich, and has his image captured in a famous photo by an American journalist: I like talking. I seriously believe trying to protect your children by not telling them everything is a terrible thing. Because it makes them imagine things that could be worse than reality. So I told my children what it was like when they beat up my dad. That was the first intimation of serious antisemitism. 10th March ’33, I remember everything. I was at home with a cold & my mum had gone out shopping. In a block of flats you have laundry facilities in the basement Our maid was down there. So I was alone in the flat. I heard the key of the door at the end of the corridor. I was at the other end in my bedroom. I expected whoever it was who had come back to see if I was all right. Nobody came. Funny. I waited a while. Then I got up. I walked out through my brother’s bedroom to the corridor that led down to the front door. My brother’s bedroom door was opposite the bathroom. Outside the bathroom door I saw my father’s– he used to hang his suit there. There was his suit & his shirt all blood-drenched. What does a little girl of 8 feel? I was scared you know. It was as if I had been winded; I mean, I now think in retrospect that’s how I would describe it. I walked down the corridor. My parents’ bedroom was closed. I did something I had never done before: I knocked. Then I opened the door. I saw my father pull up his sheet so that I shouldn’t see his face. He said: 'Warte, bis deine Mutter heim kommt'—wait until your mother comes home. The word Mutter was never used, it was always Mutti. The use of that language, & seeing him pull up the sheet, the feather bed, to cover up his face. I don’t remember walking back to bed, but I remember lying on my back on my bed feeling nothing, you know, nothing. It is hard to explain & it’s hard for me to recreate, even in myself. Then my mother came back & the maid came back & my brother came back from school. At that point I knew they were protecting me from knowing what had happened, they didn’t want to tell me. Somehow this idea must have formed in my head: if I ever have children I’ll never do that, I’ll tell them. I don’t think they told me, I must have found out something. But no detail. The following day we were driven down by friends to our little house in Walchensee with our doctor. My father was very brave about it, so I knew he was all right. The fact that they protected me from the details didn’t matter so much at the time. I was 8. When I was 10 there was a polio epidemic in Munich. My parents sent me to an aunt in Luxembourg. It was that aunt who showed me the famous picture which had appeared by that time in the world press. An extraordinary thing went on in my head: I thought that she should not have shown it to me, it should have been my parents. So I learnt from it. You have to cope with whatever situation presents itself. No different from anybody else’s life. Children learn to cope with whatever their situation is. To a kid, whatever happens is normal. 945: Dad's Blood-Drenched Shirt 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 945: Dad's Blood-Drenched Shirt ← 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 Arrested Attempted Humiliation Encounter With Nazi Officials Nerves of Steel Telling The Story Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany See Locations Full Text Munich, 10th March 1933 Bea Green MBE's father, Dr Michael Siegel, goes to a police station to complain on behalf of a Jewish client whose shop had been damaged, is beaten up by the police and marched round Munich, and has his image captured in a famous photo by an American journalist: I like talking. I seriously believe trying to protect your children by not telling them everything is a terrible thing. Because it makes them imagine things that could be worse than reality. So I told my children what it was like when they beat up my dad. That was the first intimation of serious antisemitism. 10th March ’33, I remember everything. I was at home with a cold & my mum had gone out shopping. In a block of flats you have laundry facilities in the basement Our maid was down there. So I was alone in the flat. I heard the key of the door at the end of the corridor. I was at the other end in my bedroom. I expected whoever it was who had come back to see if I was all right. Nobody came. Funny. I waited a while. Then I got up. I walked out through my brother’s bedroom to the corridor that led down to the front door. My brother’s bedroom door was opposite the bathroom. Outside the bathroom door I saw my father’s– he used to hang his suit there. There was his suit & his shirt all blood-drenched. What does a little girl of 8 feel? I was scared you know. It was as if I had been winded; I mean, I now think in retrospect that’s how I would describe it. I walked down the corridor. My parents’ bedroom was closed. I did something I had never done before: I knocked. Then I opened the door. I saw my father pull up his sheet so that I shouldn’t see his face. He said: 'Warte, bis deine Mutter heim kommt'—wait until your mother comes home. The word Mutter was never used, it was always Mutti. The use of that language, & seeing him pull up the sheet, the feather bed, to cover up his face. I don’t remember walking back to bed, but I remember lying on my back on my bed feeling nothing, you know, nothing. It is hard to explain & it’s hard for me to recreate, even in myself. Then my mother came back & the maid came back & my brother came back from school. At that point I knew they were protecting me from knowing what had happened, they didn’t want to tell me. Somehow this idea must have formed in my head: if I ever have children I’ll never do that, I’ll tell them. I don’t think they told me, I must have found out something. But no detail. The following day we were driven down by friends to our little house in Walchensee with our doctor. My father was very brave about it, so I knew he was all right. The fact that they protected me from the details didn’t matter so much at the time. I was 8. When I was 10 there was a polio epidemic in Munich. My parents sent me to an aunt in Luxembourg. It was that aunt who showed me the famous picture which had appeared by that time in the world press. An extraordinary thing went on in my head: I thought that she should not have shown it to me, it should have been my parents. So I learnt from it. You have to cope with whatever situation presents itself. No different from anybody else’s life. Children learn to cope with whatever their situation is. To a kid, whatever happens is normal. 945: Dad's Blood-Drenched Shirt 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

Attempted Humiliation Memories 925: Finding Something Good In Everything Ursula Gilbert My father always used to find something good in everything. He'd say: ‘Things are not so bad. We'll get through it.’ Until the very last day... Read Full Memory 945: Dad's Blood-Drenched Shirt Bea Green MBE I believe trying to protect your children by not telling them everything is a terrible thing. Because it makes them imagine things worse than reality... Read Full Memory 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... Read Full Memory 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... Read Full Memory 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... Read Full Memory 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... Read Full Memory 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... Read Full Memory 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... 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 Previous Experience Next Experience

Emigration to Czechoslovakia 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 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?' Read Full Memory Previous Experience Next Experience

Concentration Camp 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 935: Starting To Speak Mala Tribich MBE Talking about my experiences was a very gradual process. Before no one was talking & no one asked... Read Full Memory 936: Why It's Necessary To Talk & Write Selma van de Perre I didn’t speak at all the first 30 years! To anyone or anything or myself. It was in 1975 with the opening of the Ravensbrück Memorial... 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 950: Liberation of Majdanek Rose Lebor At liberation I was four. All the executions, the beatings that they had to watch. My mother could never bring herself to tell me... Read Full Memory 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... 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 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... Read Full Memory 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... Read Full Memory Previous Experience Next Experience

Betrayed 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 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 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 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... Read Full Memory 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... Read Full Memory 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... Read Full Memory Previous Experience Next Experience

938: Some Kind Of Darkness Eva Evans MBE came to Britain with her family from Berlin in 1939: Eva Evans 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 Eva Evans MBE 's interview with Sharon Rappaport for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, July 2006 • Learn More → Eva Evans MBE Asked To Leave School November Pogrom / Kristallnacht Refugee Life War Work Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts England See Locations Full Text Eva Evans MBE came to Britain with her family from Berlin in 1939: I wanted to be a writer. But I never felt that I could write in English the way I could have done in German. So that was the end of that. From the time I could read, I was by myself, reading a book. That was my life. My mother used to have tea parties & I’d sit in the corner reading a book. I didn’t hear what they said. I was completely absorbed in books & fantasy life. We had a garden opposite our house. A whole colony of gardens. In Germany they were called Schrebergärten. I played Red Indians there with my schoolfriend. Our main occupation—such a pleasurable thing I remember from my childhood. We had to walk very quietly across the leaves so the enemy wouldn’t hear us. Eva's father's Iron Cross, awarded for heroism in WW1, allowed her to stay on at her Berlin school when other Jewish children were excluded. I remember being asked to a birthday party. The father was in Air Force uniform. I looked at him with a little bit of surprise. He must have realised that I was Jewish & he looked at me with equal surprise. But that was all that happened. The November Pogrom (Kristallnacht) was traumatic for Eva & her family, who left soon after. I did feel terrible during those days—really awful. I had a terrible itch, a rash all down my back but there was nothing to see. The only thing I brought with me—I’ve still got it now: when my friend Steffi & I played Red Indians we had little animals & they were our totems. I've got that still. I’m not quite sure where it is at the moment but I know I brought it with me. At the frontier what I remember is the police & my mother's coat. It had pebbles sewn into the seams so that it hangs. They thought it was jewellery. It wasn’t, it was pebbles. In England all I cared about was going to school. In Norfolk Court Hotel there were people there who knew both German & English. I was always very good writing essays. I wrote in German & they translated it for me. But when I came to England I lost the fluency of my writing. When war broke out the family moved to Torquay & then Barrow-in-Furness. Eva's father was interned. Eva did war work, in a shipyard & then in the fire service. I used to have to work out the amount of petrol to be used by the fire engines. Every weekend I used to hitchhike to see the country. I love nature. It liberates me. I took risks—I would never allow my daughters to do what I did in those days. Stand in the road & hitchhike & lorries. I didn’t go into private cars. I had a pocket knife always to defend myself. But nothing ever happened. Once the RAF had a dance & I went to that. Otherwise I felt such a gulf that I didn’t try to be intimate with anybody. Postwar, Eva went to university & worked first in the rare book trade, then with European academics. She has an MBE for services to European Studies. I had a very good Prussian training. That’s why I’m so good, if I say so myself, at my job. I got that from my father: orderliness. I always did what had to be done whether I liked it or not. That’s a very good thing to be brought up that way. There is some kind of darkness in my childhood & I’ve never got over that, the Nazi atmosphere that affected my parents. But no, I don't want to say that. I've had a happy life. It’s had a very deep effect but it’s a fact of life. There are lots of other refugees. 938: Some Kind Of Darkness Eva Evans MBE Edited from Eva Evans MBE 's interview with Sharon Rappaport for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, July 2006 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

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

927: The Wonderful Thing Ruth Rogoff, Zwickau, 1938: Ruth Rogoff 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 Ruth Rogoff's interview with Dr Rosalyn Livshin for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, March 2005 • Learn More → Ruth Rogoff Arrested Betrayed Emigration to Czechoslovakia Hostel Polenaktion Quirk Of Fate Reunited Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts England See Locations Full Text Ruth Rogoff, Zwickau, 1938: My father was a courier for getting people out of Germany & over the border into Czechoslovakia, illegally. One day he was betrayed & caught & put in prison. My mother managed to get him out but his number was up, he was under surveillance. So he decided to go. Obviously they couldn’t take anything with them, so we went on foot, at night, with whatever we could carry, over the border, the route he knew. Left the car behind, left everything & went into Czechoslovakia from Germany. Then the Nazis occupied Prague, in March 1939. As soon as they came, he went to Poland, because his parents had been deported there from Germany because they were ‘Ostjuden’. My father went back to see if he could help them. He couldn’t because he had no means. Nobody could help anybody, this is the point. He went back there & then disappeared to all intent & purposes. He couldn’t contact us & we didn’t know where he was. He had an interesting journey, you might say. He made his way to the Balkans & got on a ship that took on political refugees. Because of his work as a courier he was considered a political refugee & was accepted onto this boat in June 1939. The strange thing is, if you talk about quirks of fate, when it came to the Channel, the boat, the ship was so big, it couldn’t come into the Channel. So they divided the people on into three sections, alphabetically. My father was sent on a ferry to England, by chance. Another section was sent to France, which of course was at that time still free. The third lot remained on the boat & went to Canada. So, the luck of the draw. He came to England. He was desperate to be in contact with us. He didn’t know any English—he heard the kids selling newspapers shouting “England in danger, England in danger!” His heart sank, he got a paper & got somebody to translate what was England in danger from. It was a test match: cricket. Ruth's mother won a cookery competition organised by the British Embassy in Czechoslovakia. The prize was 3 visas to England. Ruth, her mother & brother arrived on September 3 1939. We had no idea where my father was, that he was in England too. He was in a hostel for Jewish men, they were divided. He used to go into Blooms in the East End & get a bowl of soup & with it they brought a huge pile of bread. For sixpence he had a bowl of soup & about six slices of bread. He did really very well out of it. He wasn’t allowed employment. He couldn’t speak English anyway. But the wonderful thing was when we arrived, we were put into a hostel & the first thing my mother did of course, was to go round the men’s hostels to see if anybody knew. She went with a photograph, asked if anybody had seen him, heard of him, knew what had happened to him. That’s what people did. She knocked on the door of this Highams Lane Hostel. And my father opened it. Quite remarkable, isn’t it? Just remarkable. That’s how they found each other. 927: The Wonderful Thing Ruth Rogoff Edited from Ruth Rogoff's interview with Dr Rosalyn Livshin for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, March 2005 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

November Pogrom / Kristallnacht Memories 937: Eichmann Asking For Chopped Liver Fred Barschak On Saturday: elderly Jews scrubbing the pavements & marvellous shouts of ‘At last, Hitler’s found work for the Jews!' Read Full Memory 938: Some Kind Of Darkness Eva Evans MBE I wanted to be a writer. But I never felt that I could write in English the way I could have done in German. So that was the end of that... Read Full Memory 944: Cat Piddle In My Beer Rudolph Sabor It strengthened my belief: this cannot be forever. A cultured people like the Germans, would wake up any day. Total delusion... Read Full Memory 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... Read Full Memory 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... 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 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... Read Full Memory 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... 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

Refugee Life Memories 938: Some Kind Of Darkness Eva Evans MBE I wanted to be a writer. But I never felt that I could write in English the way I could have done in German. So that was the end of that... Read Full Memory 941: Sharing The Sandwiches Henry Wuga MBE Ingrid & I got married on December 26 1944. In the middle of the war. We were in love & there was nothing to wait for. We were 20... Read Full Memory 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... Read Full Memory Previous Experience Next Experience