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Polenaktion Memories 927: The Wonderful Thing Ruth Rogoff My father was a courier for getting people out of Germany & over the border into Czechoslovakia, illegally. One day he was betrayed... Read Full Memory 946: Being Stateless Is An Advantage Benno Stern My father, by a great stroke of fortune, was made stateless by Poland because he’d fled the country. It worked to our advantage... Read Full Memory 978: Hitler On The Loudspeakers Simon Jochnowitz I remember Hitler on all the loudspeakers everywhere. You couldn’t escape it. I remember being in bed & saying “Oh I can’t sleep, I can't sleep... Read Full Memory 987: Father's Deportation Betty Bloom Unfortunately, at 6am, there was a knock on the door & two Gestapo officers marched in & arrested my father... Read Full Memory Previous Experience Next Experience

HMT Dunera Memories 961: Having My Revenge Willy Field I was a refugee from Nazi oppression. I wanted to have my revenge & I had my revenge. That was a wonderful feeling... Read Full Memory Previous Experience Next Experience

Brussels 1942: 6-month-old Jacques Weisser BEM is hidden in children's homes & hospitals. His father is forced to become an Organisation Todt slave labourer. His mother is deported to Malines & murdered in Auschwitz. I should've delved more into it, asking questions. But most of the time after the war I wasn't with my father. When I was he never wanted to talk about it. 'It was what it was, we survived, we made a life for ourselves'. That's what he'd say. He refused to be interviewed by the Shoah Foundation. Maybe being on camera wasn’t his thing. My father was already gone when my mother was taken in the street. The question is, who was I with during that period? Who looked after me for a few days before putting me in this Meisjeshuis [children's home]? It’s a blank. Nobody can tell, nobody knows & I have no memories. There's nobody to ask any more & no records. In my understanding my given name would be 'Salomon Weisser'. Subsequently 'Jacques' became my nom de guerre but in the Jewish orphanage, they misspelt my name & got my birth of date wrong. That's why the research has been so hard. In Belgium there were a lot of children that were somehow saved in one shape, form or another. There was quite a decent underground. A lot of them were Jewish communists, including my uncle, Chaim Weisser. He was responsible for Charleroi. His son was also a hidden child. In August 1944 German officials decided to send the last orphans to Malines. The Belgian resistance hid the children instead. Jacques was hidden in the Ardennes with a boy called Bill. Many years later I found the lady who was involved in hiding in me in the Ardennes. I found her name, Mme Wittamer. I managed to make an appointment to see her but she never turned up. I subsequently learnt that she’d married & never told her husband that she’d hidden a child during the war. My father says that when he found me she didn't want to give me up. A lot of them didn't. She wanted to keep this child. He never talked about her either, which again I found subsequently difficult to understand because it was the last step, if you like, in the life story of being alive. The Resistance put me with her in the Ardennes. And, for whatever reason, no information of any kind from any of the family, apart from the fact that they may have met her once. Not from my father, not from my stepmother, not from anybody. That in a way hurts because that would have been [sighs]—it would have been good. To close the circle I suppose. I only know her first name because there is a card that was found. Her name was Wittamer. For many years I had photos of me, I knew it was me but where they came from, where they were taken, I had no idea. One of them gives my name on the back of one of the photos: 'souvenir de Jacqui'. Who wrote it, no idea. There's so many different layers—the puzzle, you know, trying to find the bits & pieces, it’s complicated, complex. Jacques' father was liberated by US soldiers in the forest of Waldenburg. He came to Brussels. In those days “the place to go to” when you came back was the station, always the railway station. There he met somebody he knew who told him: don't bother going to Antwerp, nothing there for you anymore, your wife died, your brother has survived. We believe your son is alive. So my understanding is he found where I was, through the Red Cross. He found me, he says in Virton but maybe in Esch-en-Raphaël, & brought me back to Brussels, met his wife-to-be, my stepmother, & his life carried on from there, as did mine. 973: The Puzzle & The Blanks Jacques Weisser BEM 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 973: The Puzzle & The Blanks ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Jacques Weisser BEM Read Full Text Previous Memory Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Jacques Weisser BEM's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, December 2023 • Learn More → Jacques Weisser BEM Close Family Murdered Finding Out Hidden Child In Hiding Never Finding Out Not Remembering Staying With Strangers Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Belgium See Locations Full Text Brussels 1942: 6-month-old Jacques Weisser BEM is hidden in children's homes & hospitals. His father is forced to become an Organisation Todt slave labourer. His mother is deported to Malines & murdered in Auschwitz. I should've delved more into it, asking questions. But most of the time after the war I wasn't with my father. When I was he never wanted to talk about it. 'It was what it was, we survived, we made a life for ourselves'. That's what he'd say. He refused to be interviewed by the Shoah Foundation. Maybe being on camera wasn’t his thing. My father was already gone when my mother was taken in the street. The question is, who was I with during that period? Who looked after me for a few days before putting me in this Meisjeshuis [children's home]? It’s a blank. Nobody can tell, nobody knows & I have no memories. There's nobody to ask any more & no records. In my understanding my given name would be 'Salomon Weisser'. Subsequently 'Jacques' became my nom de guerre but in the Jewish orphanage, they misspelt my name & got my birth of date wrong. That's why the research has been so hard. In Belgium there were a lot of children that were somehow saved in one shape, form or another. There was quite a decent underground. A lot of them were Jewish communists, including my uncle, Chaim Weisser. He was responsible for Charleroi. His son was also a hidden child. In August 1944 German officials decided to send the last orphans to Malines. The Belgian resistance hid the children instead. Jacques was hidden in the Ardennes with a boy called Bill. Many years later I found the lady who was involved in hiding in me in the Ardennes. I found her name, Mme Wittamer. I managed to make an appointment to see her but she never turned up. I subsequently learnt that she’d married & never told her husband that she’d hidden a child during the war. My father says that when he found me she didn't want to give me up. A lot of them didn't. She wanted to keep this child. He never talked about her either, which again I found subsequently difficult to understand because it was the last step, if you like, in the life story of being alive. The Resistance put me with her in the Ardennes. And, for whatever reason, no information of any kind from any of the family, apart from the fact that they may have met her once. Not from my father, not from my stepmother, not from anybody. That in a way hurts because that would have been [sighs]—it would have been good. To close the circle I suppose. I only know her first name because there is a card that was found. Her name was Wittamer. For many years I had photos of me, I knew it was me but where they came from, where they were taken, I had no idea. One of them gives my name on the back of one of the photos: 'souvenir de Jacqui'. Who wrote it, no idea. There's so many different layers—the puzzle, you know, trying to find the bits & pieces, it’s complicated, complex. Jacques' father was liberated by US soldiers in the forest of Waldenburg. He came to Brussels. In those days “the place to go to” when you came back was the station, always the railway station. There he met somebody he knew who told him: don't bother going to Antwerp, nothing there for you anymore, your wife died, your brother has survived. We believe your son is alive. So my understanding is he found where I was, through the Red Cross. He found me, he says in Virton but maybe in Esch-en-Raphaël, & brought me back to Brussels, met his wife-to-be, my stepmother, & his life carried on from there, as did mine. 973: The Puzzle & The Blanks Jacques Weisser BEM Edited from Jacques Weisser BEM's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, December 2023 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

Switzerland Kreuzlingen 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

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

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

Near Escape Memories 943: The Legless Side Of The Bed Laszlo Roman I was always told I mustn’t pee by the side of the road because someone might see that I am circumcised... Read Full Memory 944: Cat Piddle In My Beer Rudolph Sabor It strengthened my belief: this cannot be forever. A cultured people like the Germans, would wake up any day. Total delusion... Read Full Memory 953: Slave Labour In Ravensbrück Selma van de Perre They transported us to Ravensbrück. Terrible. Screaming, shouting, dogs & whips. The dogs had the same clothes as the soldiers... Read Full Memory 955: 28 People Hiding In The Loft Rivka Reich We thought going to Auschwitz would be just hard labour. But my father was different. He thought we must escape... Read Full Memory 957: How To Hide In Vienna Father Francis Wahle Letter-writing was timetabled: once a week. But from 1942 onwards there were no letters in reply because my parents went underground... Read Full Memory 959: The Invasion Of Hungary George Donath It was a Sunday. We went to my grandparents for lunch as usual. All of a sudden we see these black Mercedes drawing up in front... Read Full Memory 962: Speaking German With An English Accent Charles Danson I'd been the wireless operator for quite some time, so I said to my comrade ‘Let’s change over now’... Read Full Memory 983: The Struggle To Stay Alive Helen Aronson BEM We were taken to a disused prison. People were crying & hungry, not knowing anything. In the morning, Chaim Rumkowski came... Read Full Memory 996: How To Hide In Berlin Hans Danziger My father had nerves of steel. Before the war, Jews were obliged to put ‘Israel’ in front of their names. My father refused... Read Full Memory 999: The Caretaker & His Daughter Miriam Freedman At night time, the caretaker used to bring us food. We sat there, never able to talk, no toys or books or anything. Things becoming all the time worse... Read Full Memory Previous Experience Next Experience

961: Having My Revenge Willie Field, born in Germany, took part in the D-Day Landings for the British Army: Willy Field 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 Willy Field's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, September 2003 • Learn More → Willy Field Australian Internment British Army British Internment HMT Dunera Nerves of Steel Recovery Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts France See Locations Full Text Willie Field, born in Germany, took part in the D-Day Landings for the British Army: That was the best thing that could happen to me. After all, I was a refugee from Nazi oppression. I wanted to have my revenge and I had my revenge. That was a wonderful feeling. Willie joined the army in Australia, where he'd been sent on the HMT Dunera to be interned by the British government: It was ridiculous to send people who were refugees from Nazi oppression there. Finally, they sent a gentleman from the Home Office to Australia. His name was Major Layton. He tried to persuade young people to join the Pioneer Corps & come back to England. Of course, all of us youngsters immediately volunteered. We landed in Liverpool, where we were sworn in to be soldiers. We were given a pass & told that in ten days we have to report to Ilfracombe to join the Pioneer Corps. We were trained there. It was quite comical because most of us couldn't speak proper English. I must compare it with "Dad's Army" if you want me to be honest with you. We didn't have rifles or guns or anything. We had broomsticks, things like that. At least we were in the British Army & we were somebody. It was something I always wanted to do. From then on we were split up & sent to various Companies. I was sent, with one or two of my friends, to a company near Oxford - 65 Company. We had to build huts & roads. Then I was sent to Internee 149 Company at Catterick Camp. It was always the same: building huts or building canvas & that was not what I really wanted to do. I was 22 years old & thought I could be doing better things than building huts etc. Then, all of a sudden, they called us in & said, "You don't have to, but, if you want, you can join the fighting forces." I thought, now is my time, so that is what I did. I was thinking, "What shall I join? The infantry? No, I don't want to start walking". So, I said I wanted to go into the tank, the Royal Armoured Corps. I applied but you don't hear anything. After about a month, the Commanding Officer called me in & said, "You have been accepted for the RAC, but you have got to go on a test." I said, "That's all right." They sent me to Aberystwyth for a week. They gave us mental & physical tests. I was accepted. Eventually I was sent to Ilfracombe to the RAC & trained as a tank driver. I changed my ordinary Pioneer hat to a black beret with a tank on there. I was so proud you can't imagine. I used to walk through Ilfracombe & think: at last now I can do a bit of fighting. I passed my tank driving test & was sent to Norfolk, Thetford, to the King's 8th Royal Irish Hussars. I was of good German origin & was accepted by them as their own. I had no problems. Nothing. I was given a tank & a crew. A tank crew consists of a tank driver, a co-driver, a wireless operator, a gunner & a commander. We trained to get ready for the D-Day landing. I was the tank driver. The tank driver's job was to look after the tank, ensure everything's all right, that there is always enough petrol. The best thing that happened in my life. Not only it was the comradeship, it was wonderful - completely different from the Pioneer Corps. You are somebody then. No anti-Semitism. They knew I was Jewish, originally from Germany. I was absolutely like one of them. We trained & eventually went to Bognor Regis & got our tank ready for the D-Day landing. The D-Day landing we took part. I was always with them. I took part at the Normandy Landing it is called. We landed and I was with them. It was a wonderful thing for me arriving in France & taking German prisoners. For me that was one thing I always wanted to do ever since I left Germany. A wonderful feeling & wonderful comradeship. We went right through to Holland & here comes the sad part I'm afraid. We were always together with my five, we lived together. On the way to Nijmegen & Arnhem, my tank was knocked out by a German 88 gun &, unfortunately, everybody was killed except me. A dreadful thing. I managed to try to save the gunner operator. He had his leg already off, his arm was half off but he was still alive. I got him behind the tank & managed to get the ambulance boys to pick him up. I couldn't pick him up. I was wounded myself, but it was a blessing he died on the way. That was a terrible thing. I was in hospital for a few days. But, like everything, if you fall off a bicycle you get on the bicycle straight away. They gave me another tank. I went through to Hamburg & we took Hamburg. 961: Having My Revenge Willy Field Edited from Willy Field's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, September 2003 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

972: Discovering My Brother Was Alive Mala Tribich MBE Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Sweden, postwar. Mala Tribich MBE, recuperating after concentration camps, thinks she is the only member of her family to survive: Then one day I got a letter from my brother Ben. We were in this stately home with all its beauty, I opened it, I read it & was so excited. I ran out into the grounds of this place. There were people milling around. It was a nice summer day & I was holding up this letter saying—shouting, I've got a letter from my brother, I've got a letter from my brother. I was sort of running through the grounds saying that. I think that probably it was nice for all of them to know that somebody’s found their relative alive. Then Ben & I started corresponding. And everyone started leaving Sweden gradually. In 1947 it was decided I was going to my brother in England. Oh, it was a great celebration. They were all very pleased for me. Most people didn't have anywhere to go. I travelled by myself. Today, they would send someone with you &, you know, everything. But in those days, they put me on the boat & I travelled. I was seasick. Ben was waiting with a friend. I could recognise him. It – three years. Mind you, that three years is different because one develops and – yes, I have some lovely pictures of his early time here. I was very excited. We got on the train to go to Victoria Station. I was quite fascinated by the houses. The back of the houses on a railway line, they don't look so great. That was just after the war when they hadn’t done anything to them. There were chimneys & chimneys & chimneys on some older houses, that's what struck me. Ben was living in a hostel in Swiss Cottage. A man had donated two houses, turned them into a hostel. We had games, dances, music, meetings. They were proper. Someone from the Central British Fund came to meet me. She said: 'we haven’t found anything for you yet but there's one girl who’s had an operation. 'She is on convalescence in Blackpool, so you can have her room. By the time she comes back we’ll have found you a room'. They sent someone to go with me, to look after me, & they sent me out to get some clothes. I had clothes but they felt that they wanted to fit me out. You had to have coupons. They didn't always have the clothes that you wanted & there wasn't another delivery for six months & you saw something in the window & you liked it & then they'd say no, but that's only for the window, we haven’t got anything for sale. Difficult, very hard times then but they took me out to kit me out. It wasn't anything too extravagant but they—anything I needed. Then they sent me to learn English. I went to a place in Warren Street called English for Foreigners. I learnt that very quickly [laughs]. Not because I’m good at it but because I knew how quickly I needed it. So then from there, yes, then they wanted to know what I wanted to do, to earn a living. I wanted to do secretarial work, so they sent me to a secretarial college for just about a year in Swiss Cottage. After that I was working & I was self-supporting. My first job was for Cape Times, the newspaper. They had a London office & that's where I got a job, at £4 a week, & I lived on the £4 a week. And from there, you know, I went up and up. 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 Close Family Murdered Hostel Recovery Reunited Swedish Recuperation Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts England Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

966: I Thought You Were A Nazi Bea Green MBE Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Bea Green MBE went to secondary school in Munich: There were two girls who often turned up with their BDM—their Hitler Youth uniform. I stayed clear of them. One of them found me after the war. There were five Jewish girls in a class of 40. The five of us were in a little bunch. The other 35 were in their larger circle. It didn’t bother us, it kind of seemed normal & it didn’t mean that I didn’t talk to the others ever. I didn't think about them until the article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung about the Kindertransport & my visit to Munich. She read this article & rang the editor who gave her the address of the woman who wrote the article who rang me up & said could she–I said yes, you can give her my address. So she didn’t want to wait to write, she got onto directory enquiries & got my telephone number. The telephone rings: “Is that Mrs Green?” This is in German. “Ja.” I’ll tell it in English. “Were you the Beate Siegel?” Yes. Ah, she said. I remember, you were sitting in the front row by the door & you used to go & look out for the teacher. When he or she came, you used to dash back into the classroom & say: “Er kommt, er kommt” “He’s coming, he’s coming” But you were so quick that you were sitting down before he actually came to the door & I admired that because it was so courageous. After all this I said to her, but who are you? She told me her name. Now, the next bit came straight out, without going through the filter of my head, came straight out from wherever my soul is: 'But why are you ringing me I thought you were a Nazi?' Boom. Moment silence. Then she said: how can you say that, I was so shy. 'But you used to turn up in your BDM uniform'. Then she said that there was a good reason for that: 'I can explain it.' Her explanation was that her father was a civil servant accused of anti-Hitler sentiments, so she was making up for it. And I believe her, she’s decent. She said, but “Ich hab’ die Treffen immer geschwänzt”: I always played truant when it came to the meetings of the Hitler Youth by saying I have to practise my piano. She is now a professional pianist. You know, it rang true, I believe her, & we are in touch even now. When you hear stories like that, you get a view of history where you have to distinguish between the real bastards & those that kept quiet when they shouldn’t & those who kept quiet when they perhaps had no choice. She told me a good story also about the Director of my school. During the war, after I'd left & was in England, in German schools, whenever Hitler made a speech, all the children had to listen to the speech, so they were all taken into the big assembly hall. She told me the director had a pact with the janitor who fiddled with the radio. It crackled & crackled. The janitor would say every time “Sorry but the radio’s broken” & they all clapped & went back to the classroom, never listening to Hitler’s speech. Little anti-Nazi tricks & a director who was courageous enough to do it & a janitor who worked with him. And the girls who didn’t object or didn’t go home & denounce the director. So this went on in Germany throughout the war. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Bea Green MBE 's interview with Sharon Rappaport for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, June 2006 • Learn More → Bea Green MBE Hitler Youth Resistance Reunited Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

Australian Internment Memories 961: Having My Revenge Willy Field I was a refugee from Nazi oppression. I wanted to have my revenge & I had my revenge. That was a wonderful feeling... Read Full Memory Previous Experience Next Experience

941: Sharing The Sandwiches Henry Wuga MBE Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Henry Wuga MBE came to Britain on a Kindertransport, settled in Glasgow and became a chef: Ingrid & I got married on December 26 1944. In the middle of the war. We were in love & there was nothing to wait for, not really. We were 20. We had the wedding in the synagogue & the function in Ingrid’s parents’ flat. A very nice party. I got one of the chefs from the hotel to do the cooking while we were at the synagogue &, well, again, we tried to do it differently. The menu is still hanging up out in the hall. We delivered a special menu. I was determined. Food was always important, just the presentation. I made bombs, ice cream bombs, yes. I had shapes, you filled in the ice cream but then you have to freeze it. Now we had no deep freezers or anything like that in these days. On the day of the wedding, I went down to the local Italian shop, asked his permission to use his ice cream machine, filled our bath with ice & sea salt to make it into a saline solution, & froze the bombs in there. Crazy, but that gave us a lot of pleasure. A very nice wedding. Just a few months before the wedding I was sent by my employers, a big catering firm in Glasgow, to Abbotsford, the home of Sir Walter Scott, to cater the wedding for his great-great-granddaughter. I was very greatly honoured at age 20 to be sent to arrange this wedding. I had tremendous help from the local baker, who supplied me with staff, with sandwiches. The gamekeeper’s wife happened to be French, so she came & helped me in the kitchen for a family dinner. It was war time, but being on a private estate, consommé, lobster, pheasant, partridge, was not a problem. It was for me a wonderful experience. They were very kind & this baker eventually said to me, ‘When you are getting married in December we will do the wedding cake.’ He sent me a 3-tier wedding cake but you wouldn’t recognise it. It’s silver in colour because the outside was made of these cake boards in papier maché. You were allowed to bake cakes but you were not allowed to ice them. That was the war time restriction. But it was very generous of this man to send me a cake. Henry met his future wife Ingrid at a refugee club: It didn’t have a name. We just called it the centre, was a little house called ‘the house on the hill’ in Sophie Hall Street, where the dental hospital is now. It was financed by the trade union movement in Glasgow. We learned a lot about music, we had lectures, we had meetings on a Saturday afternoon. On Sundays we went for rambles. There were discussion groups & helping the war effort. We founded a group singing Czech & Austrian songs for Mrs. Churchill’s aid to Russia fund. We toured Scotland, performing in the Usher Hall, in St. Andrew’s Hall, in the music hall in Aberdeen to raise money for Mrs. Churchill’s aid to Russia fund. We were fairly left-wing in climate, 1st of May march, etc. Ingrid's father warned her, ‘Don’t get involved in left-wing affairs.’ But luckily she did. It was so egalitarian because we all had no money. You did what you could. On a Saturday we went for a ramble. You made yourself a sandwich or something, but, some people had more money than others. So you threw your sandwich in the middle in a cloth, & then took a dip & had to eat whatever came out. Nobody should suffer from not having enough money to put whatever they want in their sandwich. The club was great. We made great friends that lasted many, many, many years. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Henry Wuga MBE's interview with Dr Anthony Grenville for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, October 2004 • Learn More → Henry Wuga MBE Food Kindertransport Refugee Life Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Scotland Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts