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

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

997: My Mother & Father Trude Silman MBE Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Trude Silman MBE, Bratislava, wartime: 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. I really don’t know exactly what happened to her. Initially she was in Bratislava. I’m given to understand she worked as a nurse in the Jewish hospital. Eventually she must have moved out of there & gone further East when there was the Slovak uprising. As far as we can gather, but we have no proof, she went out one day & never came back. They assumed she was one of the people who was picked up & shot. But we have no clear evidence as to what actually happened to her, we believe she was sheltered by a Roman Catholic priest, & we actually had some proof of this, because, after the war, the priest’s housekeeper somehow or other sent us a letter telling us about some possessions of my mothers, which they were placing with another aunt. But we’ve lost the letter so we’ve no idea what, where & how. I’ve never been able to trace it. If you don’t know the place, if you don’t know the name, if you haven’t the time, if you don’t speak the language, it is not easy to do. So we hope that possibly still some literature will come up from somewhere. The Red Cross haven’t been able to trace her & there’s no record. She seemed to lead the sort of life that most of her sisters lived. They did their basic cooking, they did their shopping, they met in the coffee house to talk, they went to each others’ houses & that was basically it. But my mother was a very early riser. She used to go & do the market shopping very early in the morning, about five in the morning when the market started, I remember that. She was a fabulous cook, & unfortunately I never picked it up, because I was too young at that age to learn about those sorts of things. It's a tragedy, a real tragedy, what happened to my parents. I only found out relatively recently that my aunt & uncle managed to get them a post as housekeepers, domestics. My father was already well in his 50s, & he decided he was too old to make that sort of a commitment & he didn’t think that the Holocaust would arrive, he didn’t think it was going to be what it was going to be. So my parents didn’t come out. I only discovered this when I found a document from one of the refugee committees. There was a little ‘D’ against my parents' name that indicated that they were granted a domestic permit. They never took it up. So that was that, I only discovered that relatively recently. In 1939 Trude came to the UK with her aunt. Her brother & sister were already there. Up to about 1941 were letters written on what I would call toilet paper & my father did most of the writing, used to be a little sheet of paper & if it came to me I would pass it to my sister, & she would pass it onto my brother, so we used to circulate our letters. That’s why some of them have gone astray, because my brother destroyed all of his stuff, he couldn’t bear it. So we lost a lot. Then the letters stopped. My father was transported to Auschwitz on the 19th of April, 1942. The death certificate said the 8th of May. So he survived 3 weeks in Auschwitz, which doesn’t surprise me, because when he was transported he had actually injured his leg, & my cousin who saw him off said he was limping when he went on the transport. You know, you were expecting to see your parents very soon. There wasn’t a day, every single night I used to pray they’re all right, & that they’ll be safe, & I’ll see them soon, this went on for years & years & years. But again the emotion has gone out of this as the years have come on, that goes, you only remember the nice things. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Adapted from Trude Silman MBE's interview with Dr Rosalyn Livshin for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, November 2003 • Learn More → Trude Silman MBE Finding Out Never Finding Out Red Cross Letters Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Czechoslovakia Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

993: Jews Not Welcome Ruth Jackson Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Ruth Jackson, Eberswalde, early 1930s: 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. It made a terrible impression on me & I asked my mother why had he done that, it seemed a bit stupid. She said he had been in a sort of prison, that he didn’t very much like the Nazis & he’d spoken against them & he was taken into a prison & they put it in there so that he would always remember that. That made a big impression on me. In early 1933, Hitler came to Eberswalde as he toured Germany. All our windows faced the square so we saw all these people gathering, thousands of people, marching, singing, swastika flags flying, & a podium was set up for Hitler. There was a knock at the door, my father was in Berlin. My mother opened the door & I heard her arguing with a man. In the end she let him in. We were forced to put a swastika flag out of our windows, which of course my mother didn’t want to do. She hung the banner right below, as low as she could get below our window sill. I thought she would fall out. I was hanging onto her skirts. We were told that if we didn’t it would be so noticeable: Hitler would be facing our windows. We put the wooden blinds down but you could still hear him shrieking & shouting. But we couldn’t see him—or I could through the slits of the blinds. When they all went we were able to breathe again, but my parents decided it was best to move back to Berlin. Because you are not so noticeable in a crowd as you are in a small town. In Berlin we lived near the Reichskanzlerplatz, which was duly changed to Adolf Hitler Platz. I was 7. I made friends, the teacher seemed to like me, I got on quite well, until one day my mother was asked to come to the school. I was given a note for her. I was afraid, wondered what I had done wrong, nobody said anything, I was just asked to give her this letter. Well, the letter was for her to come to the school, which she did. She told me I wasn’t going to go back to that school because the other parents objected to their children being in a class with a Jewish child. So that was the end of that school. The second time I had to move. Luckily enough for me, a new school was being built, a Jewish school called Theodor-Herzl-Schule, at the top of the avenue that we lived in. I had to go by tram but that was all part of the fun of it; I made lots of friends. Suddenly I didn’t have to worry about being Jewish because we were all Jewish. We couldn’t go to cinemas, swimming pools, but somehow as a child you to take it all in your stride, it didn’t seem to worry me terribly because I’d got my friends. Then we had to move again. It wasn’t an easy thing to do. You’d find a flat & people would say ‘Are you Jewish?’ We’d say, yes, & they’d say, ‘We don’t want you’. Finally we did find a flat a bit nearer school. There were other children nearby & I was able to befriend them. You didn’t go out to play, you played in each other’s homes. Somehow we just accepted that. We weren’t welcomed in restaurants. No ice-cream parlours any more. I don’t think I looked particularly Jewish & certainly my mother wasn’t Jewish. But we weren’t going to take the risk. Shops would say ‘Jews not welcome’. But the worst thing that happened was this: my mother wasn't Jewish, all her family weren’t Jewish. We used to visit them quite happily, they had children, my mother’s cousins had children who were nearer my age than my own brother & sister. So I used to enjoy going there. One day, we went to this one aunt called Ella. She always made us very welcome but on this occasion she furtively looked round the door to see that nobody had seen us come. Almost pulled us into the flat, I was shooed into the other room to play with my cousin. My mother & my aunt went into the kitchen & chatted, & they were out very quickly, normally they’d stay in there for ages & talk & we’d play. The first thing I noticed in the sitting room was that there was a big picture of Hitler on the wall where the mirror used to be. My cousin said to me ‘why are you looking at that, haven’t you got a picture of Hitler?’ I said, no, no, & what happened to the mirror? Oh, we took that down, this is much more important. I was nearly going to say something when my mother said ‘we’ve got to go. I forgot.' I thought it was a bit strange but I went. And my mother said, I’m afraid we can’t go there any more. They’re going to be in trouble if Jews come into the flat, or meet us anywhere, my uncle would be out of a job, the children at school had been told to spy on their parents. It just wasn’t safe for them. So that was that. So we didn’t see any of my mother’s relations any more. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Adapted from Ruth Jackson's interview with Helen Lloyd for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, August 2004 • Learn More → Ruth Jackson Asked To Leave School Betrayed Encounter With Hitler Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

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

977: The Cruel Guardian Maria Ault Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Maria Ault came to Britain with her younger sister Birgit on a Kindertransport in May 1939: My first guardians were fine But when we were evacuated in September 1939, we stayed with a very, very, very, very bad person who used to hit us. She didn't feed us properly. But who could we go to in Melton Mowbray? There was no Childline. She should have known better. She was a minister's wife. I was used as a cheap maid. One day, I was only 12, I was getting a lunch ready for a hotpot, which meant I had to peel onions & potatoes & carrots. And because I used the same knife for the potatoes & the onions, because I didn't change my knife, she hit me. Really hit me hard & said, ‘I've had enough of you, get out.’ It was raining. I took my sister & we walked through Melton Mowbray hand-in-hand. We had nowhere to go, nowhere at all. So, in the end, we were soaked. We went back & I think she was quite pleased to see us. I didn't tell anybody. How they ever found out, I think it might have been through my headmistress who used to have me in her study to give me extra lessons. I had my arm in a sling because my guardian was so cruel to us. I had very bad abscesses under my arm & I had my arm in a sling one day. My headmistress said, ‘Maria, what's – why are you wearing a sling?’ So, I told her. She said, ‘Let me look.’ So, she looked… She didn't ring that person up who I was staying with, she rang the doctor & said, ‘I'm taking Maria straight to the hospital.’ They said if I had – I wouldn't have lived if I had – not a few hours, because I was – it was blood poison. So we were moved, to a very nice house. But again, I was taken in as a maid. I had to leave school & be taken in as a maid. And one day I thought: is this my life? Because my parents were in Sweden, we didn't even know whether they were alive. Maria grew up in Hamburg. I was a very privileged little girl. We were brought up in a nursery with a nanny. Our house was always full of people & music. My mother was a singer & had a choir, they used to meet. And when they’d finished their tea up, my brother & I went down to the kitchen & took the cakes & ate them, which was lovely. I was strictly brought up, which was so good because when I came to England, there was no money. The very first memory I have of having a meal, they gave us fish paste sandwiches. My sister & I looked at each other & she took my hand & we went upstairs & cried our eyes out. Not because of the sandwiches, but because we’d just left our parents. But to cry over fish paste sandwiches, I laugh now, but I didn't laugh at the time. I'm so happy and so lucky that I've got a character where I say, this is what happened to you & you get on with life. But my sister was different. When she was very happily married, they emigrated to Canada. She had 2 children. And one day she couldn't stand it anymore. She had memories of when she was beaten. She used to faint, when we had that awful woman looking after us in Melton Mowbray. My sister used to be beaten & then she'd faint & it was just awful. She couldn't take it. So, unfortunately, two years ago, she wrote me a goodbye letter. We used to talk on the phone every week. We used to talk about our past & she just couldn't stand it anymore. She asked the doctor in Canada: can you take your own life? She was allowed. He gave her an overdose & she passed away two years ago, because she just couldn't stand it. It was definitely because of what happened to us. Because when she went to the psychiatrists the first time she tried to do it, he said: ‘It's all because of what happened to you in Melton Mowbray.’ I'm so happy and so lucky, so grateful that it hasn't happened to me. I remember when we first came over, in the dining car from Harwich to Liverpool Street. We were given porridge. One thing I couldn't stand was porridge, & nor could she. Her tears were rolling down her cheeks. So, when she wasn't looking, I took this porridge & ate it for her. She said, ‘I'll never, never forget it. I’ll never...’ Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Maria Ault's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, May 2024 • Learn More → Maria Ault Attempted Humiliation Food Kindertransport Staying With Strangers Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts England Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

995: Father's Shop Harry Bibring BEM Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Harry Bibring, Vienna, 1938: It was perfectly OK to try & obtain Jewish property by purchasing it at a peppercorn price. There was actually an official place in Vienna called the Vermögensverkehrsstelle where a Nazi could go & say, “I’d like to buy a tailor’s shop”, or,“I’d like to buy a flat”, or whatever. I picked up some documents in the '70s in the Austrian State Archives: a man wished to buy my father’s shop for 5,000 Reichsmark, about £200. It was argued that my father’s shop was in debt. That wasn’t surprising, because he hasn’t any customers since the Anschluss. If it had happened, my whole life would have been different. Because my father would have lost his shop to these people. I don’t know why it didn’t go through. If it had gone through, the shop would have survived the war. I would have come back after the war, got my father’s shop back, possibly lived in Vienna. Follow in his footsteps. That’s a possibility. But because that didn’t happen, on Kristallnacht it was destroyed. What happened was this: on November 10 my father disappeared. The last employee that my father still had working for him, a non-Jewish man, a family friend, he phoned up & said my father hadn’t arrived at the shop. We found out afterwards that my father was arrested, together with other men from our block, from surrounding blocks. They were transported by a van to a jail, & locked up for 10 days. 12 to a cell. Fed on bread & water under the cell flap. No exercise whatsoever, except to bring them out for the wardens to amuse themselves & abuse them in various ways. We didn’t know any of that. Later that same day, Nazis came to our flat. And took my mother, [sister] Gerti & me, initially to the headquarters of the local Nazi Party. There were eventually about 30 women & children in this room. We were then marched through the streets for about an hour, flanked front, back & sideways with guards. And brought to a flat way out from where we lived. Some woman’s flat, a Jewish woman, living alone, in a large flat. She wasn’t told we were coming. We were told we had to stay there until further notice. We were actually relieved. I think all of us expected, although none of us said it, that we were being marched to a train station to go to a concentration camp. This was happening all over the city, though we didn’t know at that time. We stayed there for some time & had to find a way of getting food. Eventually Gerti was sent out to buy food. She was told where the local shops were. She took all the money that the old woman had in the flat & that other people had in their purses. She came back with a load of root vegetables, which was clever because they aren't perishable. Every root vegetable that you could think of. So we were all stuck there. After about ten days, somebody came & told us to go home. And when we were going home, we met my father coming from this prison—which we didn’t know he was in—from the opposite direction. We were reunited outside the front door. The scene is indescribable: a happy & sad scene. My father told us what happened to him, & we told him what had happened to us. It was then that he cleaned himself up & went to the shop & found it was totally destroyed. Not a pair of trousers left from his shop. Everything that was breakable was broken. It was also the point when my father told us that he was thinking of emigrating. Because now he can’t earn any money. There’s not much in the bank anymore. So talk started about emigrating. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Adapted from Harry Bibring's interview with Dr Jana Buresova for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, February 2018 • Learn More → Harry Bibring BEM Arrested Destruction of Property Encounter With Nazi Officials November Pogrom / Kristallnacht Reunited Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Austria Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

1000: Idzia Mala Tribich MBE Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Piotrków Trybunalski Ghetto, Poland, 1942. Mala Tribich MBE is 12: Rumours started circulating that there's going to be a deportation. So people were in panic, trying to find ways of saving themselves. Escaping the ghetto into the forests, in the sewers, into the open. Some had friends outside who’d perhaps save one or two members of the family. And there were people who were doing it for money, saving Jews. My father & uncle, Joseph Klein, were introduced to a man from Częstochowa, a beautiful town about an hour & a half away from Piotrków. This man was willing to hide two Jewish girls during the deportations but he was doing it for money. That was a business arrangement. This man actually came from Częstochowa into the ghetto. He was smuggled in. I remember them sitting around the table & discussing things. He was paid in advance & we were to travel to Częstochowa one at a time with him a week apart on false papers. He'd pick me up first then come back for my cousin. But my aunt pleaded with him that since they only had one child & I was one of 3, would they take my cousin first. He said no, insisted on taking me first. So he came back for me & a week later for my cousin. Now, travelling itself was very scary because if you're sitting in a train with a lot of people & if someone looked at me for longer than a few seconds I immediately thought: they're suspecting me of being Jewish. It was really terrifying. There was actually a reward for handing in Jews, so there were people there on the lookout for Jews. It was a scary journey but we both arrived there one at a time & found ourselves in a big house on the outskirts of Częstochowa with a middle-aged couple. The man who made all the arrangements was their son-in-law, who lived around the corner with his wife & child. These people weren’t particularly nice to us but they didn't ill-treat us. They just left us alone. We were very scared. We were supposed to be relatives who'd come to stay from Warsaw – Warsaw because we would be not so easily identified from a large town as a small town. My cousin Idzia was younger than I: she was 11 & I was 12. She was so homesick she couldn't bear it. She wanted to go home & she was told she can’t because the deportations were still happening. But she said that her parents had very good friends in Piotrków who held all her family's valuables who would take her in. So the man said OK, off they went. I still languished there for what felt like a lifetime. It didn't come into question that she could take me too & I wasn't asking to be taken. On one occasion there was an engagement in the family & they took me with. A German soldier was getting engaged to a Polish girl. I was there with all these people & I was terrified. I just hoped they wouldn't ask me any difficult questions. Another time: a boy about my age lived down the road. He befriended me a bit. He said: I want to take you somewhere really interesting. In Częstochowa there is a church with a Madonna who cries & her tears are real pearls that come. He said: it’s a kind of museum, kind of church. I'll take you to see it. I thought: if he takes me into a church, I won’t know how to cross myself. He will soon discover that I’m not Christian. I was really worried but I had no reason to say no, I don't want to go. So, we went & my good luck: the church was closed that day. It was on a Tuesday, I remember that. Eventually it was time for me to go home. I was to meet my father in a flour mill which before the war belonged to him. Now he was lucky to have a job there. When we got there we went up to the attic at the top. We came in & there was my father but also my uncle, Joseph Klein. He looked at us & he went white. He said, where is my daughter? The man said, I brought her back, I took her back to your very good friends. My uncle said, but she's not there. Where is she? What have you done with my child? He repeated it a few times. I remember him vividly pacing with his hands behind his back, looking at the ground & pacing there & back, there & back, saying, what have you done with my child? That's the end of the story, because nobody knows what happened to Idzia till this day. And not knowing is so terrible ’cos you imagine the worst. And I still keep thinking of what have they done with her? Could they have done this or that, or cut her throat or thrown her in the river or – but, you know, bludgeoned her to death or how did – terribly she suffered. I – it’s just something I can’t come to terms with. And of course, her parents, oh, were devastated. What we heard after the war was this: That she arrived at the friends' house with the man, they collected a case of valuables & she left with the man & the case. That's it. That's the end of the story. But the man—he must have done something wrong because he left with Idzia & the case. My aunt said to me: How could anybody kill a child for the sake of a few goods? I would have given him everything I possess if only he had saved her. She never got over it. Once she said to me: My Idzia had to go into the gas chamber by herself. There was nobody to hold her hand. Those were the thoughts & the visions she lived with. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Adapted from Mala Tribich MBE's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, September 2023 • Learn More → Mala Tribich MBE Betrayed Ghetto Incarceration Homesick In Hiding Never Finding Out Staying With Strangers Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Poland Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

975: Life In A Siberian Labour Camp Izak Wiesenfeld Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Poland 1940: Soviet troops force 14-year-old Izak Wiesenfeld & his family to emigrate from Przeworsk to Novosibirsk, Siberia: We were taken by lorries into the forest, to a huge barrack. The first speech: “You will never get out of here, here you will die & if you don’t work you won't get any food”. I was 14. I had to go to the forest to cut down trees & dry out swamps, difficult work. They used to give workers 1.2kg of bread. People who couldn’t work, or who were too young: 0.5kg. The bread inside was like clay, outside was a bit better. We had no vegetables, fruit, fat, sugar, or anything like this. Because of it we couldn’t see at night, we really lost some of our sight. But when war broke out, in 1941, they stopped all the bread as well. We had to live from what we could collect in the forest. During the summer we had strawberries, or mushrooms & all kind of things. That is what we had to live on for a long, long time. We were there with Russians who'd been there since 1917, since gulags & communism. They helped, knew what was edible. When we got malaria in Siberia, during the 3 months that it was hot—people think of Siberia as cold, that wasn’t the worst, the worst was the 3 months when it was hot, like a tropical country. Then it was like in the Torah, in the Tochacha [Leviticus 26] they say: “In the evening we waited for morning & in the morning we waited for evening”. In the evening when we came home we couldn’t sleep in the barrack, because there were the bugs, & outside there was the mosquitos, thousands of them, & then we waited for the morning. And we went to work in the morning in the forest & every bite you got your hand was swollen & your feet were swollen & you waited for the evening, so it was… it was very, very difficult. For malaria there is only one cure: quinine. Here, if you get malaria, you either get an injection or pills. There, after pleading & pleading & pleading, we got it in powder form. This is the bitterest thing in the world. We couldn’t take it, one Gulag said: get hold of an onion, get one of their thin skins, wrap up this powder in it, with a bit of water. That's how we could take it. But lots of people didn’t survive. Once they became ill there, you are finished, no cure, no doctor, no medicine, or anything like this, so that is how my father died in Siberia, & my friend's father. I was a bit lucky, because although I was 14 I was short, so when my father died I was still able to sit shiva. But when my friend's father died, he didn’t go to work & they put him in prison for 8 days for this. There were about 120 or 130 of us in the barracks & about 39 died during the one and a half years we were there. We were taken once to clear away snow, about 10km from us. We slept in a school overnight on the floor, & there we got some bread, it was good bread somehow. We queued up, with our names, & she couldn’t read our names. Some of us queued up 3 times, we got 3.6kg of bread. We lay down on the floor, it was only bread, nothing else. We couldn’t fall asleep until we finished the whole lot, because for months we didn’t have any. But they didn't treat us too bad. It depended who was in charge. Mazel [luck] played a big, big part in this. We were in the forest, we were free, we couldn’t go anywhere. We had no transport, no paper, no radio, we didn’t know the world existed. Cold weather is actually very healthy weather, if you have proper clothing & boots. A human being can survive different climates. If you take an animal from a hot climate to another climate, it may die. But somehow, Hakodosh Boruch Hu [God] gave us special shkoyach [strength], if I was to eat now what I did there, or walk now on snow with bare feet, I wouldn’t be well here. Whatever Jewish customs we could keep, we kept. No question of eating treife [non-kosher food]. There was no treife there, no meat or anything like that. Although remember I said we couldn’t see at night, because of the lack of vitamins? A Russian said “If you get hold of a piece of liver & eat it your sight will be restored.” Eventually we got hold of one & it came back. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Izak Wiesenfeld's interview with Dr Rosalyn Livshin for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, August 2026 • Learn More → Izak Wiesenfeld Food Forced Soviet Emigration Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Soviet Union Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

992: Chickenpox Bridget Newman Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close July 1938: Bridget Newman's father, mother & brother move to Britain. Bridget, age 6, remains in Berlin with her grandmother. 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 & really quite kindly blue eyes. But he apologised, really, really apologised that he would now have to take this house & we would have to go. But we had to go quite quickly. I was in a bit of danger, because my father hadn't paid the Juden tax & they were looking for me. My grandmother couldn’t be with me anymore. She found a safe house for me, with a lady, Mrs Grünbaum. I’m sure she was a very good woman but I disliked her intensely. My grandmother had some flat or dwelling place near me. But we were only allowed to meet in the wood secretly. I had to eat potato soup with sausage in it. Nowadays I love it. In those days I hated it & I didn’t eat. I shared a room with other children & nearly every night the Gestapo were hammering at the doors of the house, looking for adults. Quite scary, a lot of noise & clatter. We were trying to sleep. My parents sent an Englishwoman over to try to help me. She found a place for me on a train bearing orphaned children to London. We had a day & everything. And on the day, I woke up, itching all over. What was the matter? I had chickenpox. Now, with any illness or disease, I would not have been allowed on the train. So, they clothed me with I don’t know how many layers of clothing, to cover all the spots [laughs]. And also, to take more clothes out, because I only had this small suitcase & and 10-shilling note & a big notice on my chest saying, ‘Both parents dead.’ I wouldn't have been allowed on the train otherwise. This was mid-December 1938. I said goodbye to my old nanny. We both cried bitterly and she said, ‘Why don’t you stay here with our lovely Hitler?’ I had no answer for that. I don't remember Kristallnacht. I just remember I got this teddy bear & was shoved to this safe house. The lady who came to arrange for me to go to England insisted I had to call her 'Auntie' & wear white gloves. She didn't come with me on the train. Nobody was allowed to travel with me. I had to say goodbye to my grandmother & this lady on the platform. My grandmother arranged for a little 11-year-old to look after me. I had chickenpox. I remember being on that ship & I itched, I couldn’t scratch. I couldn’t get anywhere. I was 6. I didn’t think I was happy; I think I cried a lot. But I had this little girl & she gave me a silver bracelet, which she said I should wear in her memory, which I did afterwards for many years. I didn’t know what happened to her. We went on to this boat at night. There was something soft on the floor. We all had to lie down as we were & told to go to sleep. I seem to remember just laying down, but itching. [Laughs] And then I don’t know if it’s true but I remember hearing frogs croak & chains rattle. Then I was shoved up the gangway to leave the ship. And there at the top of the gangway were my parents, & we cried & my mother cried. I said to her, ‘Why are you crying?’ She said, ‘Because I’m so happy.’ My parents were staying at the Cumberland Hotel in Marble Arch. My mother had a little gas ring on which she’d got a Schnitzel ready for me. And I can still smell the Schnitzel being fried & prepared for me. It was the first decent food I’d had for a long time. Then 14 days later my grandmother also arrived. We had a big celebration. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Adapted from Bridget Newman's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, October 2023 • Learn More → Bridget Newman Encounter With Nazi Officials Food In Hiding Staying With Strangers Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

996: How To Hide In Berlin Hans Danziger Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Hans Danziger's Jewish parents survived the war in hiding in Berlin: My father had nerves of steel. Before the war, Jews were obliged to put ‘Israel’ in front of their names. My father refused. He said his name wasn't Israel & nobody was going to tell him what to do. So he was hauled up before the magistrates, who sentenced him to 3 weeks in Spandau. He went to prison. My mother was absolutely terrified of what they were doing to him inside, came to meet him at the prison gates with bags of sandwiches in case he’d been starved. He said, “Put those away. I couldn’t eat a thing more.” In the evenings, he said, the warders used to come round to his cell, & say, “Come on Danziger, tell us. What are these idiots doing to the Jews?" He told them what was going on & they were amazed. Another time, when they were hiding during the war, he'd been somewhere & was coming through the railway barriers. My mother was waiting for him & somebody jostled my father. My father turned around & offered to punch him in the face. My mother nearly died. They had no papers, nothing. My father said to her afterwards “If I'd cowered, they might have been saying, ‘Are you a Jew or something?’” He said, “As it was, nobody dared question it.” Another day, he was on the tram, having been to the country to fetch eggs & butter & so forth from a farmer. Black market. He was on the tram & some Nazi with a big swastika in his buttonhole said to him, “What have you got in your case?” My father said, “I've got butter, eggs, sugar, a bit of this, leg of chicken.” The chap says, “Yeah, yeah. In your dreams.” My father said, “Just shows you my son, always tell the truth.” This is how they first hid: my father was working in Daimler-Benz. One day, the Jews were told to stay behind. My father thought, well, this does not bode well. So he put his hat & coat on, & went. The gatekeeper said to him. “A bit early, isn't it?” My father said “I've got a dental appointment.” “OK, see you tomorrow.” He obviously hadn't been told to keep the Jews in. So my father went. God knows what happened to the rest. My father went straight to the underground, took off his yellow star, rode around, I don't know for how long. He then phoned some friends who said, “Yes, Lotti’s with us.” So he knew my mother was safe. Then he went to the house. Fischer, the porter, had made an arrangement with him. If there was trouble or the Nazis were upstairs, he would turn a cup upside down in his porters’ lodge. So my father went past & he saw the cup upside down. So he didn't go up. Then a couple of nights later, he went back again. There was nothing there. So he went upstairs. He broke the seal on the door, because the Gestapo had sealed the door. He started getting the boxes ready & the porter came rushing up & said, “What are you doing? Are you mad? Some people are saying there's a light on in the Danziger flat.” So they turned the lights off. My father said “Take what you want, just get the boxes to Goerner.” So they did up the boxes & manhandled them downstairs to the porter’s lodge. From there, they went to his friend Goerner’s place. These were all non-Jews. There were many people, all non-Jews who helped them, hid them, gave him false papers, took them out. I can't say enough about them. My father tried with Yad Vashem to get honours for certain people. One of them employed my father as a night watchman. So during the day, my father went out of the district where he was known & went to different places. At night, he had a safe place to go as a night watchman. By this time, my mother had been questioned by the Gestapo about where my father was. She could answer honestly saying she hadn't a clue. They left her alone. Then her friend Helli was working at an electrical plant, Siemens. The foreman there quite fancied her. When it was time, all the Jews stayed behind, he said to her “Look, I know you're not that keen, but do you want to go with them? Or do you want to come home?” She said, “I'll come home with you if my friend Lotti can come.” So he said, “Alright, bring your friend Lotti, but you’d better hurry.” So he got them to his house & put them up. There was an old railway carriage at the end of his garden with the chickens in. He threw out the chickens & installed Helli & my mother. He used to bring them little bits of felt to make hats, which he then sold in the factory. Nobody asked where he got the hats from. He was a bit of a drunk, & when he was drunk, he used to sing anti-Nazi songs. Not a good thing to do in those days. So, my mother got very frightened & said to Helli, “I don't think we ought to hang around here.” So my mother stayed with some other friends, one of whom was not Jewish. Had been married to a Jew, who had divorced him. He found my mother a job with some woman who had dementia & was some raving old Nazi. My mother didn't look very Jewish so that was OK. We have a photo of a Nazi officer in the photograph book. And we said, “What on earth’s he doing in there?!” You know. She said, “you don't judge a book by its cover”. She said she was somewhere at a party & this officer was there & he said to her, “I'm sure,” you know, “ask your husband's permission, but honoured Lady—gnädige Frau—if you would care to have my arm should you want to go out. I would always be—here's my phone number.” So she phoned him & he took her out. If she wanted to go shopping to some shop, where she wouldn't be allowed normally, he would take it to the shops. He knew she was Jewish. He didn't ask any questions; he didn't want to know. He never asked. He never said anything. But obviously, why should he bother, you know? Sadly, sadly, he was killed by the Russians at the end of the war & both his sons died on the Russian front—they were both doctors. Very sad. The ones who do good get killed. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Adapted from Hans Danziger's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, February 2021 • Learn More → Hans Danziger Arrested Encounter With Nazi Officials Helped By Non-Jews Hiding In Plain Sight In Hiding Near Escape Nerves of Steel Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

976: Taking What Was Thrown At Me Hannah Wurzburger Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Hannah Wurzburger, age 5, was on the last Kindertransport from Berlin. She left on September 1, 1939, and arrived in Britain on September 2: It's a bottomless pit. So absolutely appalling. Children are so vulnerable. Especially when they're separated from their family. I don't know how they can do this. The whole thing is just a nightmare. Terrible. It took a long time to... accept the situation that I had gone through. Hannah's parents & most of her family were murdered in the Holocaust. I left Berlin when I was 5, so I don't have much recollection there. I do remember coming downstairs & saying, “Hello!” to my mother. And she said, “Oh you don’t have to say hello.” My father teaching me a few things in English: “Let me broom the kitchen”, for instance. I was on the last Kindertransport. It was September, a couple of days before they declared war here. I don't remember the journey. I seem to have a picture—whether it's made up or not—of being with lots of children. This train—I think I had actually a teddy bear. My mother I remember, I think, at the station. I don’t know how they got me there. It may be an imaginary thing. I don't know. What you think you remember is probably more important than what actually happened. I don't remember anything of the journey or arriving here. I had an aunt over here. A little while after I left Berlin there was a letter from my mother. A card perhaps with a photo. I can't remember exactly. But that was it. That was all. My aunt went regularly to the—was it the Home Office where you went, to inquire about refugees? Who had escaped & managed to come over? They had lists of names. She went there regularly. She was not worldly, she had such a struggle, she did really quite a lot. But she—she didn’t come up with any family names. I didn't understand my situation. I wasn't very worldly. I mean I just took everything that was thrown at me & there was quite a lot! You accepted it & relied on your fellow sufferers, if you like, for friendship & talking & so on. There was no... It all seemed to be very... narrowed down & concentrated…" If I hadn’t been forced to leave. I think I would have probably learned to play some musical instrument from my parents, both of them. It's fascinating to think about. My life would have been totally, totally different. No one's life follows a smooth path, does it? We're all going all over the place. But. My life certainly would have probably been more stable. I do think Britain should take more child refugees. They seem to have the size & space. But there's this backlash of native people who say, “We get all these refugees, all these bloody foreigners.” They're afraid they're going to impact on their lives, take away their jobs & whatever. But I think there's still room in this country for many more. They've just got to be gradually assimilated at the beginning. You can't just throw them in. But you have to remember, there's no such thing as blue-blooded Englishman, never has been. They've always had foreigners. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Hannah Wurzburger's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, March 2018 • Learn More → Hannah Wurzburger Kindertransport Not Remembering Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts England Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts