981: 4th of the 4th, 1944 Jack Cynamon Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Jack Cynamon came to Britain in 1945 after spending part of WW2 in hiding in Belgium: My first recollection is aeroplanes in the sky in Brussels. One morning the sky was full of aeroplanes. There must have been 60. We didn't know what to do. My parents packed a few things, went to the railway station & embarked on the train, in a cattle truck with straw. The train went on & on for 5 days. They were fed by people at the stations, with food & water, they carried on until they reached the Pyrenees. My father worked on a potato farm, they both did, picking potatoes for a farmer, stayed there for about two months & then returned to Brussels because they found out that things weren’t as bad as originally thought. Actually, things were not so bad in Belgium until 1942. I can’t recollect going to school but I must have gone to school of some form. Then in '42 things started to get really tough. We all had to start wearing a Star of David. We were registered as Jews. My mother & father decided to try & escape. First they tried to get to Spain. They found a guide, he took them all but at the border he decided to take their money & leave them. Then we came back to Belgium, & then they tried again. They tried a second time to escape to Switzerland & again the guide took their money & left them at the border. Then things in Belgium became really desperate. They decided to start going to a hiding place. The only way they had currency, my mother had small diamonds & a specially made shoe. She hid the diamonds in the heel of this specially made shoe. Then they went into hiding. The person that looked after them was a guy by the name of Cnudde. He worked for my father & was able to bring food & the like. He hid them in an attic, I’m not sure where. I was in that attic as well. Then they realised that they could not keep me in an attic. I was 8. I was too – I wanted to run & do things & do what boys do. So one day I remember walking along & we came along to a church & my father said goodbye to me & they left me with a priest, & that was the very last time I saw my father. I vaguely remember saying a sort of goodbye. That was it. The very last time I saw my father. I became a choirboy, in a very lovely place – with other children. I became a choirboy, with all the bells & whistles & everything else. I had blue eyes & blonde hair, I blended in. I can’t recollect anybody or any of the things that I did when I was there. I was sort of in a – in a quandary. I didn't know what was what. You just go with the flow. I remember being liberated in 1944, the German army leaving, using horse-drawn carriages, pulling big guns. I recall very vividly that same afternoon the American tanks coming into view. 6 tanks & a jeep. They showered us with sweets & chewing gum. My parents were still in hiding. One day there was a bang on the door because the Germans were doing a house-to-house search for Jews. There was a banging on the door & the Gestapo came in & discovered them. My mother tells me that the very last words my father said to my mother was [gets upset] she was – it's painful. It’s emotional. 'If you ever find Jackie, promise me he will be bar mitzvahed'. He was taken to Mechelen, a holding camp & then to Auschwitz, in one of the very last transports: on the fourth of the fourth, 1944. So many times I wake up at 4:44 in the morning, thinking about him, a very significant number for me. I woke up this morning with the same. My mother was British-born so she went to an intern camp, finished up in La Bourboule which is in the Massif Central, which is really quite a nice place. I joined her there after the war. I was in Brussels & out comes my mother. I was, to be truthful, I was horrified. She wanted me to go back with her. I didn't want to. I wanted to stay with the church, with the priest who loved me. My mother was at that stage a sort of a stranger. I hadn’t seen her for 2½ years." Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Adapted from Jack Cynamon's interview with Thamar Barnett for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, July 2024 • Learn More → Jack Cynamon Betrayed Close Family Murdered Helped By Non-Jews Hidden Child Hiding Valuables In Hiding Liberation Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Belgium Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

USA New York Memories 970: Mother's Death At Our Liberation Mirjam Finkelstein By January 1945 there were rumours. People got quite excited. There was a wooden table, we had to walk past the camp doctor... Previous Location Next Location

England Melton Mowbray Memories 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... Previous Location Next Location

Algeria Oran Memories 933: Interned In Algeria Erna Klein One Arabic sentence helped a lot. It meant: ‘Are you drunk or whatever is the matter with you?’ That helped me out of a few difficult situations... Previous Location Next Location

England Letchworth Memories 998: Red Oaks Boarding School Ruth Jackson I was led upstairs to an empty dormitory & told that the very end bed was mine & I should have a bath & come down to tea. I felt miserable... Previous Location Next Location

Eva Mendelsson Read full biography at The AJR / Refugee Voices Testimony Archive Memories 989: Buying Sauerkraut & Soap Eva Mendelsson When you're a child, when nasty things happen, you remember. It makes a tremendous impression, even if you don’t quite understand... Read Full Memory Previous Person Next Person

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

See Locations Spain 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 Cadiz Pyrenees Locations Previous Country Next Country

Kurt Wick Read full biography at The AJR / Refugee Voices Testimony Archive Memories 934: The Safest Place For Jews On Earth Kurt Wick Unfortunately, quite a few Jewish leaders said, ‘It's not a good country for you. Lots of crime, lots of opium, drugs, criminality... Read Full Memory Previous Person Next Person

Susan Pollack OBE Read full biography at The AJR / Refugee Voices Testimony Archive Memories 928: Goodness Kindness & Helpfulness Susan Pollack OBE I never exchanged a word with anyone. I was on my own, withdrawn within myself. If you'd been found talking to someone, you'd have been shot... Read Full Memory 949: Liberation of Bergen-Belsen Susan Pollack OBE We were not human beings anymore. We were reduced to being animals - maybe more. That’s how it was. We were just – no feelings... Read Full Memory 974: How To Recover Susan Pollack OBE It took a long time for me to strengthen my own needs. I made a friend & she made a very big, deep impression on me. A shared nightmare... Read Full Memory Previous Person Next Person

956: Getting To Grips With It Gerti Baruch Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Gerti Baruch came to Britain from Vienna in 1939: On Sundays in Vienna my father used to take me to Café Siller, along the Promenade. He used to read the paper. I used to have soft-boiled egg & tea. There was an ice cream parlour next door. Then the Anschluss. We had a caretaker downstairs in our block. Overnight he was in Nazi uniform. My mother was very determined not to stay. On Kristallnacht my father was taken to Dachau. My mother got him out & he went to Palestine. I left Vienna with my mother, two weeks before the war. We didn't see my father for 11 years. My sister had a permit to work as a nanny in Kensington. Somehow she managed to get a permit for my mother to come to England as a cook. I don’t know how my mother managed it, but we had a beautiful Art Deco coffee set, quite heavy. She managed to bring that over. It's standing in my house. And a Kaffeemühle [coffee mill] which my daughter has. I was very unhappy at first because I was separated from my mother & had to be fostered. Her employer didn't have room for me. And the whole English way of living was strange. Tea with milk. One of my foster families lived in Ruislip Manor. They didn’t send me to school. I more or less looked after their little boy. I was only 12. Eventually my mother managed to get an apartment in Belsize Grove. My sister & my mother & I lived there. My mother got a job as a machinist in Clerkenwell Road, for C&A. My sister & I got jobs there too. I was only 15 & underage so was employed illegally as an overlocker. We used to go by underground to Goswell Road, then walk down to save the bus fare. We walked in the blackout to Clerkenwell Road. During the war we went to sleep in Belsize Park Underground Station every night. It was very, very sociable. When the sirens went we went up & then the all-clear. Then we showered & went to work. Then I worked in Argyle Street as a machinist. I was 16 so it was legal. A Jewish firm. They had a son who took me out to a Chinese restaurant. I didn’t have a clue about Chinese food & was too shy to ask. I just couldn’t eat anything. But that was the first outing. It was a sociable place. Somebody there pierced my ears. But eventually I worked with my mother at home. My mother smoked, then I smoked. That wasn’t a good thing. My mother used to receive letters from my father in Palestine via the Red Cross. He was very unhappy. Unsettled. The climate didn’t agree. I had boyfriends. They used to take me to Fischer’s off Bond Street. A tea dance. My mother enrolled me at Saint Martin's School of Art. I did fashion drawing & still life. Then I went to Hammersmith School of Art. I was always into fashion. It was always my pet thing. Until I got married at the age of 21. His name was Max & he came from Germany, on the Kindertransport. We went on honeymoon to Torquay, to a hotel where about six other young married couples stayed. In 1950 my mother managed to get my father over to England. He wasn’t very happy. By then I had a baby. He couldn’t get to grips with it. Nor my mother. Very strange. Very sadly, Gerti's father killed himself. Hitler destroyed lots of people. I’m so lucky to be here. But I often think what would have become of me in Vienna. I often think of that, you know. It’s like a dream. I've been back. Vienna was - is beautiful. I went back with my children & showed them. In London we used to visit the Cosmo Cafe a lot with the family. Very social. You always saw the same people in Cosmo's on a Sunday. We used to have Schnitzel & a Continental salad from the bar. You could help yourself. I haven't done too badly. Sometimes people ask: 'Where do you come from?' I say, 'From Austria.' 'Oh, Australia! Vienna, Australia!' Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Gerti Baruch's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, July 2016 • Learn More → Gerti Baruch Anschluss Dachau November Pogrom / Kristallnacht Refugee Life Suicide Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Austria Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

See Locations Switzerland 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 970: Mother's Death At Our Liberation Mirjam Finkelstein By January 1945 there were rumours. People got quite excited. There was a wooden table, we had to walk past the camp doctor... Read Full Memory Kreuzlingen Lucerne St Gallen Locations Previous Country Next Country