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Hans Danziger Read full biography at The AJR / Refugee Voices Testimony Archive Memories 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... Previous Person Next Person

Poland Piotrków Trybunalski Memories 1000: Idzia Mala Tribich MBE Rumours started circulating that there's going to be a deportation. So people were in panic, trying to find ways of saving themselves... Previous Location Next Location

Not Allowed To Visit Cinemas 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 Experience Next Experience

991: My Ransacked School 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. 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

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

988: Getting Up From The Dust 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. I think I've only got three photos. Painful. I'd give my children a hug when they were leaving for school: 'Give me a kiss, have a nice day'. But people living in that part of the world at that part of the time had couldn't afford that luxury. The antisemitism was constant. Growing up I accepted being called a dirty Jew. [Ivor was 7th out of 9 siblings.] My brother Alec was the only other one who survived. He was 2 years older than me. We went together to Auschwitz & survived together. He looked after me. He saved me from the gas oven twice, literally. I was in the gate of hell when he saved me. When the Germans overthrew the Hungarian government [1944], from the following morning, edicts started coming out against the Jews, gradually. Jews mustn’t marry non-Jewish people. You must be home by 7. You mustn’t go from a certain street. Gradual, gradual, until the noose. We used to play football with non-Jewish friends. Those same boys, when the time came for us to be herded into Szeged ghetto, they were ones that herded us there. After the war my brother spoke to those boys we used to play with. He said, how could you do that to us? They said: Well, we didn't know what was happening. All we were told along was the equivalent of the Boy Scouts. The sergeant used to come along: tomorrow, turn up with a stick & we’ll give you ten shillings. And they turned up & their job was to herd us into the ghetto. My father & two other brothers were sent to the labour battalion & then to Auschwitz. One day in Auschwitz, my brother & I were walking along & he said to me: our father is here. I said: how comes? We used to have roll calls every morning & one day my father didn't come back. We've got the date of his sort of passing away but not the when or why, I've got no idea. As a young boy, you never realise the severity of it all. To show you how it was: when I first went on the cattle truck I laid down on the floor and could see the trains running from the railway lines, clickety-click, click I said to myself: Oh, wow, isn't this an adventurous journey? My oldest brother David was a rabbi at 21. When he went to Auschwitz, I heard later on that he worked in a Sonderkommando. Have you heard of that? What happened: people used to arrive at Auschwitz & be segregated. Those that could work were put to one side, those who were not just went to the gas chamber. But what happened after the gas chamber? Who took the dead bodies from the gas chamber to the crematoria? The slaves. The Sonnderkommando. But the Sonnderkommando were not allowed to live more than 4 weeks. Every 4 weeks, they themselves were put in a gas oven. I mean. Can you imagine? As you know, I wrote a book. My wife said: why don't you do something useful? You’ve got a computer, nobody knows your life story, including your children, write your life story instead of wasting your time. So I sat down at the computer for half an hour, not knowing what to write. As I started typing, suddenly it all came out. I was 50. Until then I lived a life of denial. I thought the best way forward for me, get up from the dust, dust myself down. Try not to think too much about the past because I didn't want to hurt the children or the wife. But afterwards the children kept on telling us, why didn't you tell us about it? We said: Because we didn't want to hurt you. They said: they didn't ask us because they didn't want to hurt us. But we didn't have the luxury of therapy in those days. Was it the right way to go about it? I don't know. I don't know. Ivor Perl BEM, born in Makó, Hungary, survived Auschwitz, Kaufering & Dachau camps: Ivor Perl BEM 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 Ivor Perl BEM's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, October 2024 • Learn More → Ivor Perl BEM Attempted Humiliation Auschwitz Betrayed Concentration Camp Ghetto Incarceration Not Remembering Recovery Telling The Story Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Hungary See Locations Full Text Ivor Perl BEM, born in Makó, Hungary, survived Auschwitz, Kaufering & Dachau camps: 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. I think I've only got three photos. Painful. I'd give my children a hug when they were leaving for school: 'Give me a kiss, have a nice day'. But people living in that part of the world at that part of the time had couldn't afford that luxury. The antisemitism was constant. Growing up I accepted being called a dirty Jew." Ivor was 7th out of 9 siblings. My brother Alec was the only other one who survived. He was two years older than me. We went together to Auschwitz & survived together. He looked after me. He saved me from the gas oven twice, literally. I was in the gate of hell when he saved me. When the Germans overthrew the Hungarian government [1944], from the following morning, edicts started coming out against the Jews, gradually. Jews mustn’t marry non-Jewish people. You must be home by 7. You mustn’t go from a certain street. Gradual, gradual, until the noose. We used to play football with non-Jewish friends. Those same boys, when the time came for us to be herded into Szeged ghetto, they were ones that herded us there. After the war my brother spoke to those boys we used to play with. He said, how could you do that to us? They said: Well, we didn't know what was happening. All we were told along was the equivalent of the Boy Scouts. The sergeant used to come along: tomorrow, turn up with a stick & we’ll give you ten shillings. And they turned up & their job was to herd us into the ghetto. My father & two other brothers were sent to the labour battalion & then to Auschwitz. One day in Auschwitz, my brother & I were walking along & he said to me: our father is here. I said: how comes? We used to have roll calls every morning & one day my father didn't come back. We've got the date of his sort of passing away but not the when or why, I've got no idea. As a young boy, you never realise the severity of it all. To show you how it was: when I first went on the cattle truck I laid down on the floor and could see the trains running from the railway lines, clickety-click, click, & I said to myself: Oh, wow, isn't this an adventurous journey? My oldest brother David was a rabbi at 21. When he went to Auschwitz, I heard later on that he worked in a Sonderkommando. Have you heard of that? What happened: people used to arrive at Auschwitz & be segregated. Those that could work were put to one side, those who were not just went to the gas chamber. But what happened after the gas chamber? Who took the dead bodies from the gas chamber to the crematoria? The slaves. The Sonnderkommando. But the Sonnderkommando were not allowed to live more than 4 weeks. Every 4 weeks, they themselves were put in a gas oven. I mean. Can you imagine? I wrote a book. My wife said: why don't you do something useful? You’ve got a computer, nobody knows your life story, including your children, write your life story instead of wasting your time. So I sat down at the computer for half an hour, not knowing what to write. As I started typing, suddenly it all came out. I was 50. Until then I lived a life of denial. I thought the best way forward for me, get up from the dust, dust myself down, try not to think too much about the past because I didn't want to hurt the children or the wife. But afterwards the children kept on telling us, why didn't you tell us about it? We said: Because we didn't want to hurt you. They said: they didn't ask us because they didn't want to hurt us. But we didn't have the luxury of therapy in those days. Was it the right way to go about it? I don't know. I don't know. 988: Getting Up From The Dust Ivor Perl BEM Adapted from Ivor Perl BEM's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, October 2024 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

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Dr Charlotte Feldman Read full biography at The AJR / Refugee Voices Testimony Archive Memories 971: Equalising What Happened Dr Charlotte Feldman They used to demonstrate in the street below us. They used to shout, ‘Jews to Palestine!’ I had a very happy childhood... Previous Person Next Person

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 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

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 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

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 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

Concentration Camp Memories 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... 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... Previous Experience Next Experience