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

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 2006 • 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

Ruth Jackson, aged 13, came to Britain on a 1939 Kindertransport from Berlin & was sent to Red Oaks boarding school in Essex: 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. It was empty & cold & horrid-looking. There must have been 10 rows of beds on either side. I went to the bathroom & sat there in floods of tears & I thought what would my mother be doing now & how did she get back home, & is everyone alright & tears were just running down my face & there’s nobody to scrub my back. Then there was a knock on the door, ‘would I please hurry up & come down’. So I hastily got out of the water & my daydreaming, put clean clothes on, & a schoolgirl showed me the way down, there were a few girls still there, & we sat down to what was called High Tea. I was given my first cup of tea with milk which I thought was horrible. I couldn’t eat anything & they looked at me. Some of them tried to talk to me. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I felt a bit like an animal in the zoo. I wished they wouldn't talk to me at all. But, anyway, finally the meal was over and they all went home. I seemed to be left there & nobody else in this empty school for the summer holidays. Teachers had gone, there were a few domestic staff there. One of the maids showed me round the garden & showed me the library. The Headmistress then called for me & said I ought to write a letter home to say I’d got there alright, would I show her the letter before I sent it? So I did & I thought she probably doesn’t understand any German, but anyway I showed her the letter. I suppose she posted it. I had a look at the library, at the books about Australia, & I thought: maybe one day I’ll go there. Then I had to go to bed in this forlorn dormitory, & I couldn’t go to sleep, & I just lay there under the bedclothes sobbing away thinking why on earth did I have to come here, why did all this have to happen? Eventually I did fall asleep, only to be woken by one of the maids to say it was breakfast time & that there were some children coming from the East End of London, for the holidays. We got friendly, & somehow we could understand one another. It was good to have some children there. They took us to the pictures in Epping. I’d never been to the pictures before. It was Old Mother Riley, which I thought was terribly stupid, & Bandwagon. It wasn’t my sense of humour. But what impressed me was that in the interval little trays of tea went round & people had little cups of tea in the interval which I thought was amazing. What worried me was that the teacher had taken me to the cinema. Because I as a Jewess wasn’t allowed to go to the cinema in Germany. She kept saying yes it’s alright. I thought, I hope she doesn’t get into trouble, you know. It hadn’t left me. One day the Headmistress called for me to come to her. It must have been the beginning of September. We’d already been given gas masks. I didn’t like those because I couldn’t breathe in them. The Headmistress said: ‘I’ve got a letter here from your sister, she’s going to come to England soon’. All the letters had been opened beforehand. My sister had written to say that I’d only be alone for another few days because she’d got a visa & would be leaving Germany on the 4th of September. So I thought, Oh good, it’s only next Monday, I can just about cope until then. Then of course she called me in again on the Sunday morning & said in a very matter of fact way ‘Well your sister won’t be coming now because we are at war with Germany’. I felt; well, like somebody closing the door in my face. I just didn’t know what to think. I felt devastated. Then a week later, she called for me again & said ‘You’re to go to London, to another school. So pack your things & the maid will take you to the station" Ruth went to stay with the Yardley family in Letchworth. From the point of view of money, education, & everything else, I couldn’t grumble, I did much better than a lot of them. But the one thing that I needed was love. One day there was a football match going on in the fields beyond where we lived, & there was a policeman standing outside our gate, & I saw him. To me, he’d come for me. I knew he’d been posted there so I couldn’t leave the house. I didn’t think that he’d been posted there because of the crowds of people coming after the football match. Anyway, it was teatime, & Jean called me for tea. I stood behind the curtains watching that gate & I said I couldn’t come. So Mrs Yardley said go & drag her down to tea, see what’s the matter. She came up to my room & said ‘Mother says you are to come down to tea’. I said ‘I can’t’. Why can’t you? I looked out & said: he’s standing there, he’s going to come in for me. So she went down & told her mother. Then to my horror, Mrs Yardley went out of the front door, down the long drive, to the gate. She talked to the policeman & he came in with her. I thought: I thought she was a nice person, I thought she was on my side, & now she’s actually getting this policeman in, & making it easier for him to get me. So I certainly wouldn’t go downstairs. After a lot of persuasion I finally did go downstairs. They sat having a cup of tea. And Mrs Yardley said, ‘This is Inspector whatever’, & he gave his name, & I thought, well, that’s a funny thing. So he said ‘Well thank you very much, Mrs Yardley, for the tea, nice to have met you, Ruth, bye, bye. I’ve got to go out to make sure that we haven’t got too many people up in the fields misbehaving. I thought: how funny. And how clever Mrs Yardley had been, that she’d called him in to have a cup of tea. To show me that I needn’t be afraid of the police. 998: Red Oaks Boarding School Ruth Jackson 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 998: Red Oaks Boarding School ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Ruth Jackson Read Full Text Previous Memory Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close 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 Boarder Food Foster Family Homesick Kindertransport Not Allowed To Visit Cinemas Staying With Strangers Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts England See Locations Full Text Ruth Jackson, aged 13, came to Britain on a 1939 Kindertransport from Berlin & was sent to Red Oaks boarding school in Essex: 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. It was empty & cold & horrid-looking. There must have been 10 rows of beds on either side. I went to the bathroom & sat there in floods of tears & I thought what would my mother be doing now & how did she get back home, & is everyone alright & tears were just running down my face & there’s nobody to scrub my back. Then there was a knock on the door, ‘would I please hurry up & come down’. So I hastily got out of the water & my daydreaming, put clean clothes on, & a schoolgirl showed me the way down, there were a few girls still there, & we sat down to what was called High Tea. I was given my first cup of tea with milk which I thought was horrible. I couldn’t eat anything & they looked at me. Some of them tried to talk to me. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I felt a bit like an animal in the zoo. I wished they wouldn't talk to me at all. But, anyway, finally the meal was over and they all went home. I seemed to be left there & nobody else in this empty school for the summer holidays. Teachers had gone, there were a few domestic staff there. One of the maids showed me round the garden & showed me the library. The Headmistress then called for me & said I ought to write a letter home to say I’d got there alright, would I show her the letter before I sent it? So I did & I thought she probably doesn’t understand any German, but anyway I showed her the letter. I suppose she posted it. I had a look at the library, at the books about Australia, & I thought: maybe one day I’ll go there. Then I had to go to bed in this forlorn dormitory, & I couldn’t go to sleep, & I just lay there under the bedclothes sobbing away thinking why on earth did I have to come here, why did all this have to happen? Eventually I did fall asleep, only to be woken by one of the maids to say it was breakfast time & that there were some children coming from the East End of London, for the holidays. We got friendly, & somehow we could understand one another. It was good to have some children there. They took us to the pictures in Epping. I’d never been to the pictures before. It was Old Mother Riley, which I thought was terribly stupid, & Bandwagon. It wasn’t my sense of humour. But what impressed me was that in the interval little trays of tea went round & people had little cups of tea in the interval which I thought was amazing. What worried me was that the teacher had taken me to the cinema. Because I as a Jewess wasn’t allowed to go to the cinema in Germany. She kept saying yes it’s alright. I thought, I hope she doesn’t get into trouble, you know. It hadn’t left me. One day the Headmistress called for me to come to her. It must have been the beginning of September. We’d already been given gas masks. I didn’t like those because I couldn’t breathe in them. The Headmistress said: ‘I’ve got a letter here from your sister, she’s going to come to England soon’. All the letters had been opened beforehand. My sister had written to say that I’d only be alone for another few days because she’d got a visa & would be leaving Germany on the 4th of September. So I thought, Oh good, it’s only next Monday, I can just about cope until then. Then of course she called me in again on the Sunday morning & said in a very matter of fact way ‘Well your sister won’t be coming now because we are at war with Germany’. I felt; well, like somebody closing the door in my face. I just didn’t know what to think. I felt devastated. Then a week later, she called for me again & said ‘You’re to go to London, to another school. So pack your things & the maid will take you to the station" Ruth went to stay with the Yardley family in Letchworth. From the point of view of money, education, & everything else, I couldn’t grumble, I did much better than a lot of them. But the one thing that I needed was love. One day there was a football match going on in the fields beyond where we lived, & there was a policeman standing outside our gate, & I saw him. To me, he’d come for me. I knew he’d been posted there so I couldn’t leave the house. I didn’t think that he’d been posted there because of the crowds of people coming after the football match. Anyway, it was teatime, & Jean called me for tea. I stood behind the curtains watching that gate & I said I couldn’t come. So Mrs Yardley said go & drag her down to tea, see what’s the matter. She came up to my room & said ‘Mother says you are to come down to tea’. I said ‘I can’t’. Why can’t you? I looked out & said: he’s standing there, he’s going to come in for me. So she went down & told her mother. Then to my horror, Mrs Yardley went out of the front door, down the long drive, to the gate. She talked to the policeman & he came in with her. I thought: I thought she was a nice person, I thought she was on my side, & now she’s actually getting this policeman in, & making it easier for him to get me. So I certainly wouldn’t go downstairs. After a lot of persuasion I finally did go downstairs. They sat having a cup of tea. And Mrs Yardley said, ‘This is Inspector whatever’, & he gave his name, & I thought, well, that’s a funny thing. So he said ‘Well thank you very much, Mrs Yardley, for the tea, nice to have met you, Ruth, bye, bye. I’ve got to go out to make sure that we haven’t got too many people up in the fields misbehaving. I thought: how funny. And how clever Mrs Yardley had been, that she’d called him in to have a cup of tea. To show me that I needn’t be afraid of the police. 998: Red Oaks Boarding School Ruth Jackson Adapted from Ruth Jackson's interview with Helen Lloyd for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, August 2004 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

Judith Steinberg was deported from Paks, Hungary, to Auschwitz in June 1944: 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. We looked at each other, ‘Where are we going to work? What is going to happen to us?’ Nobody knew. We were just sent there. 3 days, 3 nights. The wagon wasn’t an ordinary train, it was to transport animals. There were German guards outside the school, nobody can escape. They said, ‘If one of you escapes, we shoot 10, straight away!’ We were like sardines. Over 2000 people in the hall. They said, ‘Just take your things, you are going to work.’ We collected some photographs, bits of valuable, watch, my father’s pocket watch & bits & pieces. But there was hardly any food. We were all starving but we didn’t know where we were going. We were still in our normal clothes. When we went through the city main street, some people were crying, some were looking out of curiosity, wondering where they were taking the Jews. The Germans just said, ‘Get on, move on!’ ‘Schnell, schnell!’ or ‘Tempo!’, that was their favourite expression. So we were pushed in these wagons. 3 days & 3 nights. When we arrived in Auschwitz, two babies were dead, in my wagon. I was with my mother and four brothers. I believe that my father & oldest brother died in Mauthausen. I lost the voice in the wagon, I was very thirsty. One elderly man & two babies died & we lost our voice. We could hardly speak when we opened, it was hot, no air, no food. We wanted water. The thirst. We had to sleep standing, leaning over the one next to you. There was no room to move. They opened the door & we just looked at each other. ‘God, where is it?’ We looked at those bonfires & the people behind. Like an asylum, not a normal place. What are they doing here? They said, ‘Just get out!’ We cried for water. The German soldier said, ‘No water, you'll get some later on. You go over there’. There was a barrack & in front there was Dr Mengele, he was in charge for selection. They called him the ‘Lagerdoktor’, the doctor of the camp. We were hanging on to my mother, my four little brothers & my sister. When he saw us, he said, ‘Just leave your mother, you go that way, leave your mother, see her later.’ To my sister, he said, ‘You two go the other side, you'll see your mother later. Let them come with me, the children, your younger brothers.’ He spoke German, my mother spoke German, I speak German. I understood what he was talking about. So, that was, that was the last time I saw my mother. We were sent into a barrack, our clothes were ripped off, our hair was shaved off. A German woman called an ‘Aufseherin’ said: ‘You come to this B1 Lager, B2 Lager.’ ‘Lager’ are camp, they called it ‘Lager’, ‘And you go to C ‘Lager’. I was taken away with my sister, we couldn’t recognise each other because we had no hair. We stood naked for two hours. They threw some old rubbishy clothes at us. We were bewildered, we just don’t know, what’s this all about? We look at each other. What’s next? When will we see our mother, when we meet later? When the light came we could look through the window. This terrible smell of burning. The sky was red from all this smoke. A horrible smell. We didn’t know what it was. A woman said, ‘Don’t ask questions!’ I said, ‘When can we see my mother?’ She said, ‘I can’t guarantee you are going to see her.’ That was the answer. And I wouldn’t believe her. 954: Arriving In Auschwitz Judith Steinberg 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 954: Arriving In Auschwitz ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Judith Steinberg Read Full Text Previous Memory Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Judith Steinberg's interview with Dr Rosalyn Livshin for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, August 2005 • Learn More → Judith Steinberg Auschwitz Close Family Murdered Concentration Camp Encounter With Nazi Officials Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Poland See Locations Full Text Judith Steinberg was deported from Paks, Hungary, to Auschwitz in June 1944: 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. We looked at each other, ‘Where are we going to work? What is going to happen to us?’ Nobody knew. We were just sent there. 3 days, 3 nights. The wagon wasn’t an ordinary train, it was to transport animals. There were German guards outside the school, nobody can escape. They said, ‘If one of you escapes, we shoot 10, straight away!’ We were like sardines. Over 2000 people in the hall. They said, ‘Just take your things, you are going to work.’ We collected some photographs, bits of valuable, watch, my father’s pocket watch & bits & pieces. But there was hardly any food. We were all starving but we didn’t know where we were going. We were still in our normal clothes. When we went through the city main street, some people were crying, some were looking out of curiosity, wondering where they were taking the Jews. The Germans just said, ‘Get on, move on!’ ‘Schnell, schnell!’ or ‘Tempo!’, that was their favourite expression. So we were pushed in these wagons. 3 days & 3 nights. When we arrived in Auschwitz, two babies were dead, in my wagon. I was with my mother and four brothers. I believe that my father & oldest brother died in Mauthausen. I lost the voice in the wagon, I was very thirsty. One elderly man & two babies died & we lost our voice. We could hardly speak when we opened, it was hot, no air, no food. We wanted water. The thirst. We had to sleep standing, leaning over the one next to you. There was no room to move. They opened the door & we just looked at each other. ‘God, where is it?’ We looked at those bonfires & the people behind. Like an asylum, not a normal place. What are they doing here? They said, ‘Just get out!’ We cried for water. The German soldier said, ‘No water, you'll get some later on. You go over there’. There was a barrack & in front there was Dr Mengele, he was in charge for selection. They called him the ‘Lagerdoktor’, the doctor of the camp. We were hanging on to my mother, my four little brothers & my sister. When he saw us, he said, ‘Just leave your mother, you go that way, leave your mother, see her later.’ To my sister, he said, ‘You two go the other side, you'll see your mother later. Let them come with me, the children, your younger brothers.’ He spoke German, my mother spoke German, I speak German. I understood what he was talking about. So, that was, that was the last time I saw my mother. We were sent into a barrack, our clothes were ripped off, our hair was shaved off. A German woman called an ‘Aufseherin’ said: ‘You come to this B1 Lager, B2 Lager.’ ‘Lager’ are camp, they called it ‘Lager’, ‘And you go to C ‘Lager’. I was taken away with my sister, we couldn’t recognise each other because we had no hair. We stood naked for two hours. They threw some old rubbishy clothes at us. We were bewildered, we just don’t know, what’s this all about? We look at each other. What’s next? When will we see our mother, when we meet later? When the light came we could look through the window. This terrible smell of burning. The sky was red from all this smoke. A horrible smell. We didn’t know what it was. A woman said, ‘Don’t ask questions!’ I said, ‘When can we see my mother?’ She said, ‘I can’t guarantee you are going to see her.’ That was the answer. And I wouldn’t believe her. 954: Arriving In Auschwitz Judith Steinberg Edited from Judith Steinberg's interview with Dr Rosalyn Livshin for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, August 2005 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

954: Arriving In Auschwitz Judith Steinberg was deported from Paks, Hungary, to Auschwitz in June 1944: Judith Steinberg 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 Judith Steinberg's interview with Dr Rosalyn Livshin for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, August 2005 • Learn More → Judith Steinberg Auschwitz Close Family Murdered Concentration Camp Encounter With Nazi Officials Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Poland See Locations Full Text Judith Steinberg was deported from Paks, Hungary, to Auschwitz in June 1944: 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. We looked at each other, ‘Where are we going to work? What is going to happen to us?’ Nobody knew. We were just sent there. 3 days, 3 nights. The wagon wasn’t an ordinary train, it was to transport animals. There were German guards outside the school, nobody can escape. They said, ‘If one of you escapes, we shoot 10, straight away!’ We were like sardines. Over 2000 people in the hall. They said, ‘Just take your things, you are going to work.’ We collected some photographs, bits of valuable, watch, my father’s pocket watch & bits & pieces. But there was hardly any food. We were all starving but we didn’t know where we were going. We were still in our normal clothes. When we went through the city main street, some people were crying, some were looking out of curiosity, wondering where they were taking the Jews. The Germans just said, ‘Get on, move on!’ ‘Schnell, schnell!’ or ‘Tempo!’, that was their favourite expression. So we were pushed in these wagons. 3 days & 3 nights. When we arrived in Auschwitz, two babies were dead, in my wagon. I was with my mother and four brothers. I believe that my father & oldest brother died in Mauthausen. I lost the voice in the wagon, I was very thirsty. One elderly man & two babies died & we lost our voice. We could hardly speak when we opened, it was hot, no air, no food. We wanted water. The thirst. We had to sleep standing, leaning over the one next to you. There was no room to move. They opened the door & we just looked at each other. ‘God, where is it?’ We looked at those bonfires & the people behind. Like an asylum, not a normal place. What are they doing here? They said, ‘Just get out!’ We cried for water. The German soldier said, ‘No water, you'll get some later on. You go over there’. There was a barrack & in front there was Dr Mengele, he was in charge for selection. They called him the ‘Lagerdoktor’, the doctor of the camp. We were hanging on to my mother, my four little brothers & my sister. When he saw us, he said, ‘Just leave your mother, you go that way, leave your mother, see her later.’ To my sister, he said, ‘You two go the other side, you'll see your mother later. Let them come with me, the children, your younger brothers.’ He spoke German, my mother spoke German, I speak German. I understood what he was talking about. So, that was, that was the last time I saw my mother. We were sent into a barrack, our clothes were ripped off, our hair was shaved off. A German woman called an ‘Aufseherin’ said: ‘You come to this B1 Lager, B2 Lager.’ ‘Lager’ are camp, they called it ‘Lager’, ‘And you go to C ‘Lager’. I was taken away with my sister, we couldn’t recognise each other because we had no hair. We stood naked for two hours. They threw some old rubbishy clothes at us. We were bewildered, we just don’t know, what’s this all about? We look at each other. What’s next? When will we see our mother, when we meet later? When the light came we could look through the window. This terrible smell of burning. The sky was red from all this smoke. A horrible smell. We didn’t know what it was. A woman said, ‘Don’t ask questions!’ I said, ‘When can we see my mother?’ She said, ‘I can’t guarantee you are going to see her.’ That was the answer. And I wouldn’t believe her. 954: Arriving In Auschwitz Judith Steinberg Edited from Judith Steinberg's interview with Dr Rosalyn Livshin for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, August 2005 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

Mala Tribich MBE spent the war in hiding in Poland & then in Ravensbrück & Bergen-Belsen concentration camps. All her family except her brother were murdered. Today she is a powerful Holocaust educator. Talking about my experiences was a very gradual process. One of the first times was a Jewish club. The man who ran it—he was a teenager then—was very enterprising to have asked me. People weren’t even thinking of asking survivors to speak then. It was very early. He just felt there is something to learn and he asked me to speak. People generally started speaking in 1981. There was a reunion of people who'd been in Auschwitz together. There they used to discuss things & plan for after the war. They said if we survive & we're free, we’ll all meet again. So that reunion took place in Israel in 1981. When I came back, a Jewish group I belonged to organised a meeting—we used to have meetings in people’s houses, we weren’t a very big group. But when I got back, they organised this meeting & actually booked a hall. So many people turned up. People were interested. Before no one was talking & no one asked—liked to ask, so it just stayed silent for all those years. The odd talk here & there. So that’s when people really started talking about the Shoah. I said I wouldn't speak, but I did. And a friend spoke as well. It started from there. Sometimes I didn't want people to know that I am a survivor. We didn't call them survivors. I don't know what we called them. It just seemed so horrific & so out of normal life. I didn't ask to speak, ever. But once I was talking about a camp & this woman made this funny face. Like: oh, dear, how awful. But it was a response that made me realise she really hadn’t a clue because people wouldn't respond like that if they knew. It’s much more than 'oh dear', you know. So many aspects of people’s reactions & what people felt & said & how they said it. Now it’s come to a point where it’s an established thing. People know about it, they teach it at schools, it’s something that can be discussed. But at the beginning it was just weird. Sometimes I felt I didn't want people to know that I was in a concentration camp. If people asked me, where do you come from, sometimes I used to say: Sweden, sort of not fully understanding or pretending not to understand that where you come from isn't where you’ve just arrived from, but where you were born. So I said it quite innocently actually. I've sorted it all out [laughs] in time but I had very mixed feelings. I didn't even tell my husband's family, because it wasn’t a subject for discussion. No framework for talking. It was painful, not just for me. People were so horrified. Then books started coming out. People learned that way. The schools came much later & when they came, they didn't use it because it wasn’t compulsory. It was on the curriculum but they weren’t obliged to teach it. So now it is compulsory, so it’s different. But I don't think of myself as a survivor. I don't like to be branded as something. I’m a lot of other things as well. An ordinary human being. Talking about what happened isn't therapeutic for me but it also doesn't damage me or disturb me. It keeps it alive for me. It’s just part of my life. But I'm very motivated. I think it is so important for people to hear the story. It’s not about me. But I think it desperately needs to be told. People need to know & maybe some of them will be affected in a way to actually become active about it & do something about antisemitism. It matters that it comes from me. If you're hearing something secondhand, well, it’s second-hand. Sometimes when I speak I really have tears in my eyes but I never cry with tears, no matter how tragic or terrible. My eyes fill with tears but they don't come down my face. 935: Starting To Speak Mala Tribich MBE Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Previous Memory Next Memory 935: Starting To Speak ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Mala Tribich MBE Read Full Text Previous Memory Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Adapted from Mala Tribich MBE's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, September 2023 • Learn More → Mala Tribich MBE Bergen-Belsen Close Family Murdered Concentration Camp Ravensbrück Recovery Telling The Story Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts England See Locations Full Text Mala Tribich MBE spent the war in hiding in Poland & then in Ravensbrück & Bergen-Belsen concentration camps. All her family except her brother were murdered. Today she is a powerful Holocaust educator. Talking about my experiences was a very gradual process. One of the first times was a Jewish club. The man who ran it—he was a teenager then—was very enterprising to have asked me. People weren’t even thinking of asking survivors to speak then. It was very early. He just felt there is something to learn and he asked me to speak. People generally started speaking in 1981. There was a reunion of people who'd been in Auschwitz together. There they used to discuss things & plan for after the war. They said if we survive & we're free, we’ll all meet again. So that reunion took place in Israel in 1981. When I came back, a Jewish group I belonged to organised a meeting—we used to have meetings in people’s houses, we weren’t a very big group. But when I got back, they organised this meeting & actually booked a hall. So many people turned up. People were interested. Before no one was talking & no one asked—liked to ask, so it just stayed silent for all those years. The odd talk here & there. So that’s when people really started talking about the Shoah. I said I wouldn't speak, but I did. And a friend spoke as well. It started from there. Sometimes I didn't want people to know that I am a survivor. We didn't call them survivors. I don't know what we called them. It just seemed so horrific & so out of normal life. I didn't ask to speak, ever. But once I was talking about a camp & this woman made this funny face. Like: oh, dear, how awful. But it was a response that made me realise she really hadn’t a clue because people wouldn't respond like that if they knew. It’s much more than 'oh dear', you know. So many aspects of people’s reactions & what people felt & said & how they said it. Now it’s come to a point where it’s an established thing. People know about it, they teach it at schools, it’s something that can be discussed. But at the beginning it was just weird. Sometimes I felt I didn't want people to know that I was in a concentration camp. If people asked me, where do you come from, sometimes I used to say: Sweden, sort of not fully understanding or pretending not to understand that where you come from isn't where you’ve just arrived from, but where you were born. So I said it quite innocently actually. I've sorted it all out [laughs] in time but I had very mixed feelings. I didn't even tell my husband's family, because it wasn’t a subject for discussion. No framework for talking. It was painful, not just for me. People were so horrified. Then books started coming out. People learned that way. The schools came much later & when they came, they didn't use it because it wasn’t compulsory. It was on the curriculum but they weren’t obliged to teach it. So now it is compulsory, so it’s different. But I don't think of myself as a survivor. I don't like to be branded as something. I’m a lot of other things as well. An ordinary human being. Talking about what happened isn't therapeutic for me but it also doesn't damage me or disturb me. It keeps it alive for me. It’s just part of my life. But I'm very motivated. I think it is so important for people to hear the story. It’s not about me. But I think it desperately needs to be told. People need to know & maybe some of them will be affected in a way to actually become active about it & do something about antisemitism. It matters that it comes from me. If you're hearing something secondhand, well, it’s second-hand. Sometimes when I speak I really have tears in my eyes but I never cry with tears, no matter how tragic or terrible. My eyes fill with tears but they don't come down my face. 935: Starting To Speak Mala Tribich MBE Adapted from Mala Tribich MBE's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, September 2023 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

Business Seized Memories 947: The End Of The Gallery Tom Heinemann My grandmother ran the gallery very successfully. Then she got arrested on some trumped up currency charges & put into prison... Read Full Memory Previous Experience Next Experience

Domestic Service Memories 948: Not Remembering My Emotions Hella Pick CBE I can still see myself arriving at Liverpool Street Station. But I can’t remember much about the journey. Just a blank. It’s shocking... Read Full Memory 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... 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 Previous Experience Next Experience

Ursula Gilbert Read full biography at The AJR / Refugee Voices Testimony Archive 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 Previous Person Next Person

960: The Awful Heydrich Reprisals Frank Bright Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close May 27, 1942: Reinhard Heydrich, a principle Nazi architect of the Holocaust, was fatally shot in Prague by Czech & Slovak soldiers trained by British Intelligence. Frank Bright remembers the Prague aftermath: 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. I didn’t look as if I had a gun on me. So they left, but they had to to tick their box [half-laughs]. They looked like typical Gestapo men. They didn’t wear uniform. They wore civvies. But they all wore the same outfits, the same raincoat, the same hat! You could see them from a mile. The reprisals were awful! It just wasn’t worth the candle. A whole village called Lidice was decimated, they shot all the men & took the women to concentration camps. They killed the children. A few they sent to Germany, to be with families, to be brought up as German. My friend Kurt Hirschman & his mother were sent on a transport directly to Poland & shot on arrival. They obviously had nothing to do with it. They were not sent to Theresienstadt first. This was the only transport that was sent directly to Poland, as a result of the assassination. The synagogues in Prague were used at that time as storehouses for the loot they got from the homes of people who had been deported. One of my teachers asked my father if he could prepare me for Bar Mitzvah. My father didn’t really care. He said, “Yes, if you want to” I went to see my teacher, Dr Glunsberg, a Doctor in Oriental languages. My portion was Isaiah, ‘Nachamu, nachamu ami’ [comfort, comfort my people]. I can recite it now. The day came, and they got cold feet. Because there were things like Razzias: where a group of Jews would congregate, the Gestapo would appear, arrest them all, & they would never be seen again. Razzia is an Italian word. And so they got cold feet, so nothing forward. So I had to learn a second portion. Again, Isaiah, & again I can recite it more or less. That was to be held again, at a synagogue of course. They got cold feet again. They were afraid that the Gestapo would hear of it, & they would disappear. So I had to learn a third one. Third time lucky. But that wasn’t held at a synagogue. That was held at a prayer room; this was the ‘Shtiebel’ as they called it, from the German ‘Stube’. There were only the right, minimum number—10—around. People I didn’t know, apart from my teacher. My father wasn’t there. So the atmosphere was one of fear. We had to wear a star. We had to hand in things the Army needed: anything from cameras to bicycles to woollens to typewriters to sewing machines. Musical instruments, including gramophones & records. You could whistle; that was about it. We could only shop during two hours in the afternoon, when things that were off the ration had already gone, Our rations were far, far smaller than anybody else’s. We had no allocation of fruit, or fish. Meat. No soap. We couldn’t go to a hairdresser. No onions. No clothing coupons. Everybody had to fill in a form giving every detail of their property, from the number of cups & saucers, to knives & forks to spoons, to frying pans, saucepans, ironing boards, irons, jackets, shoes & socks, chairs & tables & display cases. The lot. No vitamins & minerals. So we were susceptible to infections, no resistance. We got inflammations. I had a huge one under my arm. You'd use hot compresses to what they call ‘ripen it’ & then squeeze it out. That would heal & the next one would appear. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Frank Bright's interview with Dr Jana Buresova for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, February 2016 • Learn More → Frank Bright Attempted Humiliation Encounter With Nazi Officials Food Reprisals Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Czechoslovakia Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

930: Reunion After 22 Years In Siberia Dorothy Bohm Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Dorothy Bohm came alone to Britain from Memel, Lithuania, in June 1939. Her parents and younger sister were forced into exile in Siberia: My sister was one when I left. 22 years later I saw her again. We had no language in common. Hers is Russian. No memories in common, no childhood. Nothing. She’s a wonderful person. But it’s been very strange. In 1957 I heard the news about my parents & sister being alive, that they still were together. The Red Cross, I don’t know how they found me, because I’d changed my name. My father was allowed out of his Siberian camp, after Stalin’s death, but had to stay in that area with that dreadful climate, & had to report to the police every day. The stories he had were amazing. Solzhenitsyn’s book, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich came out. My father read it & said to me could he be in touch with Solzhenitsyn? I said ‘Why Papa?' He said 'I would like to tell him it was so much worse'. I didn’t of course. Once my husband & I knew the three of them were alive we started to help. They survived mainly because of the parcels we sent. If you saw pictures of what my parents looked like then. My sister worked in the most terrible conditions as an economist. I saw my parents again in 1961. I went to Riga. Before I was called to the Foreign Office. They explained that if I went & anything happened to me there, they couldn’t help. But we went. We took our daughter. I thought having a child with me would somehow soften… I was 14 when I left them. I came back as a married woman with a child. As we sat in the car, my husband turned around and said ‘You look so much like your father’. You see. He had obviously changed a lot. I have a photo of our reunion. The picture looks quite normal, the conditions were not normal. Fear & anxiety the whole time we were there. We were being shadowed & followed. When we came back to our hotel one night we saw somebody with a torch looking through our things. But my father had a tremendous sense of recovery. He still believed in life, that there is good. Even some things in Communism. He said sometimes they made him change quarters: they said that things were too good for him, & the young official who took him apologised. Small things like this helped him survive. And he built his own house in Riga, & he was as proud of that as of having built his own factory. It’s that sort of survival sense he had. My mother took it in quite a different way. What was it like to see them again? Let me explain it like this: when I was in Manchester there was a family that was very nice to me, a Jewish family, used to invite me, I was at college with their daughter, when I went there, she was calling them Mummy & Daddy, I just couldn’t bear it, I stopped going there. I only mixed with people like myself who didn’t have a family. So my relationship in many ways changed. Instead of being the child with parents, I became the parent. I had to look after them. And I did. We worked for ten years trying to get permission to get them to come out. Eventually we had the chance to get a letter to Wilson, who was meeting Khrushchev. Within 3 days permission was granted for them to come to Britain. I had to go on TV. The press besieged the house. But they survived & had a few years of life, they managed to live. I took my father to see various specialists, they said he has no right to be as well as he is. He’s got a hole in his lung, etc. He wanted to live. He started to paint. There’s an interesting story. In Siberia, one of the chaps was somebody who could tell fortunes. Father told me that at the worst time, he went snow-blind, all sorts of terrible things happened. This man told him he'd survive, he'd see his family again, he'd travel by aeroplane across the world. It all came true. Extraordinary thing. I don’t believe in these things myself. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Dorothy Bohm's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, November 2004 • Learn More → Dorothy Bohm Finding Out Forced Soviet Emigration Nerves of Steel Reunited Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Soviet Union Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

See Locations Palestine Memories 926: Dressing Up As A Gestapo Officer Betty Bloom The Gestapo were coming to arrest a Jewish baby in an orphanage. So my sister dressed up as a German officer and demanded this child... Read Full Memory Haifa Locations Previous Country Next Country