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

Red Cross Letters Memories 964: The Next Thing Is We Were Gone Ruth Edwards I was on the train and saw my father crying. That made me cry. My mother said, perhaps she doesn't want to go. I said, yes, I do want to go... Read Full Memory 969: No One In My Situation Lia Lesser In 1939, my father married again in Prague. His wife was called Ola & she was a seamstress. When she came out of Auschwitz she got in touch... Read Full Memory 994: Grass Snakes At The Beacon Lilly Lampert All I know: I wanted to come to England to be with my sister Gertie. I didn't know I wasn't going to see my parents again... Read Full Memory 997: My Mother & Father Trude Silman MBE My mother is a question mark. I know she survived ‘til 1944 because we used to get the odd occasional 25-word Red Cross letter, but then it stopped... Read Full Memory Previous Experience Next Experience

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

948: Not Remembering My Emotions March 15 939: Hella Pick CBE arrives in Britain from Vienna on a Kindertransport: Hella Pick CBE 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 Hella Pick CBE's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, February 2019 • Learn More → Hella Pick CBE Domestic Service Helped By Non-Jews Kindertransport Not Remembering Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts England See Locations Full Text March 15 939: Hella Pick CBE arrives in Britain from Vienna on a Kindertransport: I can still see myself arriving at Liverpool Street Station & being picked up. That I can remember. But I can’t remember much about the journey. Just a blank. It’s shocking. It shocks me. But it also saved me from thinking about it too much. I can’t remember my emotions. The only English I knew was ‘Goodbye’ so I said “Goodbye” to the family who picked me up. A very nice house in West Hampstead. They had 3 children. They put me to school in London straight away. I don’t remember much about the school at all. But at the end of the first term, I found a school certificate: I was speaking English, obviously doing all right. But I wasn’t there long because then summer holidays & then off I went to the Lake District to be with my mother. Hella's mother arrived in Britain on a domestic permit in June 1939. Obviously huge relief. I was so lucky. She found a job with the Chorleys who wanted someone who knew how to bake Austrian cakes. Theo Chorley became the last hereditary peer to be created in this country. I’m very, very friendly with all their children. Hella's parents divorced when she was 3. Her father remarried & emigrated to the US. I really hardly ever knew my father. The Board of Deputies for a time, tried to get my father to make some financial contribution.He adamantly refused to get involved. He never wanted to do anything for me. My mother adapted well. She learnt English very rapidly. I have memories of the Lake District partly because there are photographs. I was happy walking & swimming & playing with the other children. Just having a normal child’s life. Then war broke out & the Chorleys had to go back to London. My mother had to find another job. She found this job with a family who were very comfortably off. Had a lovely house. But treated her throughout the war as just their cook. I had to go into the house by the back door. If I wanted to swim in the lake, I had to make sure than nobody else was using the garden or was swimming. This sort of thing. It made it hard for me to bring my school friends. Only the very closest friends could be told the circumstances that I was living in. Which, you know, created—well, I don’t know how much a problem it was. I had two or three very close friends who certainly did come. But it was a curious life for a small child. On the one hand to be going to a school where most of the children came from well-off established families & then going home through their back door. And we were ranked as enemy aliens. For instance, if I had school friends who lived on the other side of Lake Windermere which was in what was then Lancashire. Lancashire was a protected area: it had a prisoner-of-war camp. I—theoretically—had to ask permission from the police to go across the lake. But in fact, what we did was to row across the lake without permission. But things like that for a small child were odd experiences. I went a lot to a lovely village called Grasmere in the Lake District & became friends with one of the Lake artists called Heaton Cooper & his wife, a sculptress. They became my anchor, the absolute firmament in my life. They gave me stability which nothing else gave me. I absolutely refused to speak German. If my mother spoke a word of German on a street I would just scream at her & say, 'Speak English!' Then I had a male teacher I totally fell in love with, at the age of 13. And he said to me, 'German is your mother tongue. You’ve just got to speak German.' He forced me again to confront German. 948: Not Remembering My Emotions Hella Pick CBE Edited from Hella Pick CBE's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, February 2019 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

952: Interned On My 16th Birthday John Goldsmith came to Britain in 1937 after the murder of his stepfather & went to The Leys School in Cambridge: John Goldsmith 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 John Goldsmith's interview with Dr Rosalyn Livshin for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, June 2003 • Learn More → John Goldsmith British Internment Canadian Internment Isle Of Man Internment Reunited Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Canada See Locations Full Text John Goldsmith came to Britain in 1937 after the murder of his stepfather & went to The Leys School in Cambridge: I'd been there 3 years, when in 1940, on my 16th birthday, I was writing an English essay & looking through the window & I saw a policeman walking on the grass which we weren’t allowed to do, towards the Head Master’s house. I knew what was happening, because another German refugee, he had his birthday a short time before me, & he'd been rushed away on his 16th birthday so I knew that it meant internment. The policeman came back with the Head Master who was very nice. He said, “I am sorry you have to go away for a few days.” The police were nice, I didn’t finish my essay. They said, “Just collect a few things to last you a few days.” My mother packed a bag for me & we went by car to Bury St Edmunds, to what must have been an army camp. After a few days we were taken by train to Liverpool. From Lime Street we had to walk, carrying our luggage to a huge TA hall, which no longer exists, & on the way there there were cat calls, “bloody, bloody, bloody Germans” etc. Not anti-Jewish but anti-German. They had no idea who we were, that we were refugees, which brings me round to another point which is that the internment policy in WW2 was just as stupid as in WW1. They hadn’t learned any lessons. It was in response to the gutter press. We had an Italian in our camp who had been in the country for 25 years & never taken out naturalisation papers & his son was serving in the British army. Things like that. Anyway, from that TA camp we were taken to a place called Huyton, on the outskirts of Liverpool. The younger ones were put in tents in the gardens. I was hungry. There wasn’t enough food. From Huyton we were taken to the Isle of Man. From there we were taken by train one day in July 1940, no warning of course, to Greenock, near Glasgow, onto a ship called Sobieski. From there we were taken across the Atlantic up the Saint Lawrence River to Montreal. On the ship there was a man I'd known in Cambridge, a patient of my mother’s, a very intelligent chap, a political refugee from Germany, not Jewish. He'd served on the left wing side in the Spanish Civil War & been interned in France & then come to England. Now he was interned again. He was very knowledgeable chap. Also a very much do-it-yourself chap. He found a piece of sailcloth & made me a pair of shorts on the ship which I treasured for many years. They were a bit stiff, rather like denim. But very useful during my internment in the summer. On the ship there were also German prisoners of war. We were separated thank God. From Montreal we were taken to a place by train to a place called Trois-Rivières, three rivers. We were accommodated in a football stadium for a day or two, & we went again by train to a huge camp which was being built amongst pine woods & birch woods of Canada, quite near the American border I believe. The camp it wasn’t quite ready yet. There was one water tap for about 600 people. If you wanted a wash you had to start queuing up at about 2 in the morning but that was soon remedied. They didn’t have the roofs on either, but it was summer & that didn’t matter. I quite enjoyed the camp. We were sent out in groups to cut down trees for firewood. The huts, later in the winter, were heated by wood burning stoves & ultimately there wasn’t enough food there. We did have the Kaiser’s grandson who was a student at Oxford, he was one of the internees. I nearly chopped my leg off once. Then a commissioner called Hamilton was sent by the Home Office, who'd realised it had been really rather stupid in interning all these refugees, some of whom had actually been in a German concentration camp. He interviewed us all individually & offered some of us release. So in mid January 1941 we were taken again by ship to Liverpool. I ended up at the Adelphi to make a phone call to my mother to say I was back. My voice had broken in Canada, I had no money, so I had to ask if my mother would accept a reverse charge call from Liverpool. My mother thought it was probably some poor refugee who hadn’t got any money. Of course she was quite right, but she wouldn’t believe at first it was me because my voice had broken. I told her that the next day I would be arriving in Cambridge & she did something which for her was quite unusual, she cancelled a patient so she could meet me at the station. Only one patient mind you! She met me at the station & we were both delighted. 952: Interned On My 16th Birthday John Goldsmith Edited from John Goldsmith's interview with Dr Rosalyn Livshin for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, June 2003 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

Forced Soviet Emigration Memories 930: Reunion After 22 Years In Siberia Dorothy Bohm My sister was one when I left. 22 years later I saw her again. We had no language in common. No memories in common, no childhood. Nothing... Read Full Memory 975: Life In A Siberian Labour Camp Izak Wiesenfeld 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..." Read Full Memory Previous Experience Next Experience

Auschwitz Memories 924: The Babies Not Sent To Auschwitz Jacques Weisser BEM I have absolutely no memory of any kind whatsoever about the war other than what I have been told... Read Full Memory 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 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 954: Arriving In Auschwitz Judith Steinberg We were put in a big school hall, we were all sitting on the floor with a rucksack. They said we are going to go to work... Read Full Memory 968: How To Talk Without Crying Ida Skubiejska Everybody was killed in Auschwitz: my parents, my sister, all my uncles, aunts & cousins. Absolutely everybody except my other sister & my cousin... Read Full Memory 969: No One In My Situation Lia Lesser In 1939, my father married again in Prague. His wife was called Ola & she was a seamstress. When she came out of Auschwitz she got in touch... Read Full Memory 988: Getting Up From The Dust Ivor Perl BEM I was only 12 when I was taken to Auschwitz. I feel very, very hurt that I haven’t got many memories of my family... Read Full Memory Previous Experience Next Experience

British Citizen Memories 940: Bringing The Alarm Clock Hanna Hemingway There's a reel in here [points to her head]. I can’t get it out of my mind. It's there. I just wish somebody would erase it... Read Full Memory Previous Experience Next Experience

936: Why It's Necessary To Talk & Write Selma van de Perre was part of the Dutch Resistance & incarcerated in Ravensbrück. Her parents & sister were murdered in Auschwitz & Sobibór. She is a Holocaust educator & best-selling memoirist. Selma van de Perre 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 Selma van de Perre's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, August 2020 • Learn More → Selma van de Perre Close Family Murdered Concentration Camp Nerves of Steel Ravensbrück Resistance Slave Labourer Telling The Story Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany See Locations Full Text Selma van de Perre was part of the Dutch Resistance & incarcerated in Ravensbrück. Her parents & sister were murdered in Auschwitz & Sobibór. She is a Holocaust educator & best-selling memoirist. I didn’t speak at all the first 30 years! To anyone or anything or myself. It was in 1975 with the opening of the Ravensbrück Memorial in Amsterdam. They asked me again to come. I went. For the first time. They said, 'Why didn’t you come before?' But I was building up a new life in Britain. You know. But since then, I've been every year. My nephews said to me: 'You must write it down Selma because you’re the last one of the family, & it must be told.' I made a few notes but I never did anything about it. But it was at this painting class, where I said, 'I can’t come next week because I’m going to Holland'. The teacher said 'How nice, have a lovely holiday.' I said 'it’s really not a holiday. It’s you know, it’s that & that. I'll give a few talks.' She said, 'What about?' So, I said a few things. She asked for more. She said 'I never knew this! Concentration camps in Holland? Resistance workers? I didn’t know there were resistance workers in Holland.' She'd never heard of Ravensbrück. And people never thought that there were non-Jewish resistance workers, certainly not Jewish resistance workers. That's why I think it's necessary to talk & write. Because so very little is known about Jewish resistance workers. Because if they—when they were caught, they were killed! Nobody was alive after the war. Hardly anyone. Very few, like me. That’s why it’s not known. That’s why I thought it needs to be written. I'm glad I did. Now I'm used to talking about it. I’ve done that so often in Holland & Germany, workshops. During the war, Selma was a slave labourer for various German companies including Siemens. The archives of Siemens were closed for years. Until, one day I received an invitation. One of the directors of Siemens asked me to come over at a dinner. The Director of Ravensbrück arranged the dinner. That’s when Germans started asking me. First of all Siemens asked me to give a talk to the young employees. They took me to the factory. My experiences had a big impact on me, of course. I tell myself to enjoy every day & I try to do that. I’m very glad I’m alive still every day, & every morning I know that. Also I don’t attach so much thought about things that go wrong or break. It’s not a human life. 936: Why It's Necessary To Talk & Write Selma van de Perre Edited from Selma van de Perre's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, August 2020 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

987: Father's Deportation Berlin, October 28, 1938: Betty Bloom's father Joseph Schütz is deported back to Poland as part of the Polenaktion: Betty Bloom 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 Adapted from Betty Bloom's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, February 2020 • Learn More → Betty Bloom Close Family Murdered Encounter With Nazi Officials Never Finding Out Polenaktion Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany See Locations Full Text Berlin, October 28, 1938: Betty Bloom's father Joseph Schütz is deported back to Poland as part of the Polenaktion: Unfortunately, at 6am, there was a knock on the door & two Gestapo officers marched in & arrested my father. He didn't even have time to say goodbye to us. They took him down the stairs. He was on the first transport of Polish Jews to—you know—deported from Berlin to a place on the Polish border. The Poles wouldn't let him in. They were left there in October without any clothes, without anything, without any heating, for months. They couldn't go back; they couldn't go forward until the Poles eventually relented & let them into Poland. My father made contact with his family. In Poland he went first to stay with his mother in a place called Nowy Sącz, not far from Jaslo near the Czech border. I don't know how long he was there for. We had one or two calls from him. I had a cousin left in Berlin who sent parcels to my father because she was in hiding but she managed to send parcels to my father which I've never forgotten. I know he ended up in Buchenwald eventually because a survivor from Buchenwald made contact with my mother & came & told her that he was with him in Buchenwald in '44. At the end of '44, beginning '45. I assume he was in the death march from Buchenwald to Bergen-Belsen. 15 years ago my husband & I went to Auschwitz. We searched the records in Auschwitz but found no record of my father. I don't know the exact date that the Red Cross contacted us & informed us that the last record they have of my father is in Bergen-Belsen in January 1945, which to us was the worst news we could have had. Because to survive from '38 to '45 & then to die like this. Now after these deportations to Poland was the Kristallnacht because one of the people whose parents were deported—you probably know his name, a young man, Grynszpan. He was so angry that he killed a German in Paris which gave the Nazis the excuse for for Kristallnacht. Following Kristallnacht, I was very aware of what's going on because even at 7 or 8, at the end of our road, there was a display panel for Der Stürmer—the Nazi magazine. I read it. I read anything I could read. They made, there was a sign on our shop saying "Kauft nicht bei Juden", don't buy from Jews, even before my father was deported. So, I was well aware of what was going on. So then my mother's brother was sending his children to England, on the Kindertransport. And my older sister Ruth started to say we must do the same. 987: Father's Deportation Betty Bloom Adapted from Betty Bloom's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, February 2020 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

991: My Ransacked School Ruth Jackson, age 12, Berlin, November 8, 1938: Ruth Jackson 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 Adapted from Ruth Jackson's interview with Helen Lloyd for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, August 2004 • Learn More → Ruth Jackson Destruction Of Property November Pogrom / Kristallnacht Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany See Locations Full Text Ruth Jackson, age 12, Berlin, November 8, 1938: For the Nazis, you didn’t have to do anything wrong, you just had to be Jewish. On the day before Kristallnacht, the Nazi Youth went round & painted a big white ‘J’ or wrote the word ‘Jude’ meaning ‘Jew’, on all the shop windows in Berlin, so that was an easier target for them. On the actual night I was woken—my parents told me to get dressed, & we all sat & waited, because we could hear all the noise down the roads, of lorries, people being—shouted, being pulled out of their homes. There was a furrier opposite us & he had two small children. They were pulled out in their nightclothes & shoved onto the lorry. It was a very frightening experience. I was waiting for them to come into our house any moment now, but somehow we got missed out. It was a corner house & they went round the corner & they took a young family with a baby. I really couldn’t understand what they could have done wrong. So we sat there waiting & finally with a lot of shouting & banging, a lot of noise everywhere, glass flying, the Nazis left. My mother made the usual cup of coffee & said, ‘Now we can go to bed’, but we really couldn’t go to sleep any more. The next morning she told me not to go to school, but I was fond of school so I went, only to find that my school had been ransacked. We had vines growing up the school & we enjoyed harvesting the grapes, but they had all been pulled down. The books were all smouldering from the fire in the foreground. The building was a new building so it was very much of a concrete block, they couldn’t do much there but the glass windows of course were broken, the furniture was broken or burnt. The Headmistress told us to go home again, very quietly, but in small groups, which we did. After that, my parents thought it was best that I went to another school again, which I did. The new school was not far away from the KDW, if you know where that is, it’s a big store, on Joachimsthaler Strasse, it was called the Josef-Lehmann-Schule. So I went there, just for a short time, until I emigrated. After going to the new school I used to quite often walk to the school, take a bus in the morning, walk home again. I quite liked walking down the Kurfürstendamm, especially at Christmastime, they used to have Christmas trees for sale all along the road, & they had booths along there, selling things, Christmassy things. Like any other child I enjoyed looking at those, but I couldn’t understand why all these people were all in such a happy mood. They didn’t seem to care about what was happening to us at all. And Hanukkah, that’s our feast of lights, was spent very quietly at home. 991: My Ransacked 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

British Internment Memories 952: Interned On My 16th Birthday John Goldsmith In 1940, on my 16th birthday, I was writing an English essay & looking through the window & I saw a policeman... Read Full Memory 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