VOLUME 5 NO. 6 JUNE 2005

The General Settlement Fund: Monument to Frank Foley unveiled waiting for an end to litigation More than four years since the General evidence to substantiate claims has been Settlement Fund was created following the sought in Austrian archives. signing of the Washington Agreement - a Since General Settlement Fund awards bilateral accord between the US and - are calculated on a pro rata basis, before not a single payment has been made from the payments can be made it is necessary to indemnification programme established to process all 19,400 applications and to pay compensation for a comprehensive range establish the total amount being claimed. of Jewish-owned asset expropriation and This process is in sharp contrast with other Nazi persecution following the Anschluss of compensation measures, such as the Swiss March 1938. bank account awards, which provide for a Ll negotiating the Washington Agreement, single category or a lump sum payment Austria insisted on including a clause that the based on claimants' actual bank balances. To distribution of payments from the $210m implement this complex system, the staff of fund could proceed only when any outstanding the General Settlement Fund has been lawsuits being pursued in the US were either increased and the premises of their offices dismissed or withdrawn. One long-running extended. A monument to British agent Frank Foley lawsuit in a US court brought by Austrian is unveiled in his hometown of Highbridge, The Fund's decision-taking body, the Somerset survivors claims real estate and other independent Claims Committee, consists of possessions seized while the Nazi Reich one member appointed by the United The AJR, which generously supported the controlled Austria between 1938 and 1945. States, Professor Vivian Curran, one project to commemorate Frank Foley, 'the The Washington Agreement also member appointed by the Republic of spy who saved 10,000 Jews', witnessed enshrines the system of processing claims by Austria, Dr Kurt Hofmann, and, the unveiling of a monument to him in the General Settlement Fund that was agreed representing the UK, the Chairman, Sir Highbridge, Somerset, where Foley was by the US Govemment and a number of Franklin Berman. born and educated. Holocaust victims' organisations. As distinct Payments firom the General Settlement The date was 8 May, chosen well before from other Holocaust-era compensation Fund are the final element in Austria's the publicity machine for celebrating the measures worldwide, the General Holocaust compensation programme. Also 60th anniversary of VE Day went into Settlement Fund is unique both in the provided for in the Washington Agreement action. It was selected by the Highbridge number of categories that are compensated were lump sum ex-gratia awards of $7,000 Frank Foley Committee as the anniversary for and in the individual calculation of (firom a $150m fund), which were distributed of his death in 1958 at the age of 73. the losses. in 2002 and to which top-up awards of €1,000 The Portland stone white monument, By the claims submission deadline of 28 are now being made. An extension of social set on the green outside the community May 2003, the General Settlement Fund had security legislation forms the third pillar of hall in the small market town, shows a received 19,400 applications, with the the Agreement, allowing any Austrian Nazi bespectacled Foley stamping a visa for a victim born before 13 March 1938 to claim a average applicant claiming for losses and father whose little daughter stands next pension together with improvements in the damages sustained by three or four victims of to him. Symbols abound, including a provision of care monies (Pflegegeld) to the Nazis. On average, each of these victims train, which signifies transport to the survivors with the greatest medical needs. had sustained between two and five single camps or away to freedom as well as the losses, totalling an estimated 120,000 to As the Claims Office knows very well days when trains ran to Highbridge. A 240,000 claims that are currently being fi-om the enquiries it receives on this matter boat is linked to escape and Highbridge's researched and individually calculated. every day, it is ofthe greatest concern that a maritime connections. A clock symbolises At the time of going to press, more than way be found as soon as possible of ending the urgency of the situation. A bridge 7,000 applications containing some 85,000 this logjam so that the process of making due refers to Highbridge and somewhere is an individual claims have been researched. Of payments to claimants can finallyg o ahead. apple, the symbol of Somerset. the approximate 25,000 claims for individual This article was written with the assistance of Sculptor Jonathan Sells of Corfe Castle, losses, decisions on around 2,000 Ms Hannah Lessing, General Secretary ofthe , explained that the stone bar applications have been prepared. Where National Fund for Victims of Nazism in linking the two men's heads showed the claimants were unable to provide detailed Austria. bond of sympathy. "We don't want hatred information on their femilies' lost assets, the Michael Newman (Continued on page 2) AJR JOURNAL JUNE 2005 but one world,'he said. Guests at the event included David Yom Hashoah commemorated Rothenberg, the AJR's Vice-Chairman, and John Curtis, an active supporter of the project since chancing upon it three years ago while on a visit to Somerset. 'My father could leave after Kristallnacht as he was the director of a British subsidiary of a German textile firm, but I have often wondered how he managed to get his elderly parents out. I suspect Foley helped,' Mr Curtis ruminated. 'He saved so many people. Martin Lewis recites Kaddish at the AJR Day Pictured in front of the Zachor Holocaust Many did not realise he was Centre's Yom Hashoah ceremony Memorial sculpture at Pinner Synagogue: instrumental, while those who did (clockwise) Charles Salt, a liberator who know have mostly gone.' entered Bergen-Belsen on day 3, Most beneficiaries finished up in Alice Svarin, Nicole David, Bobbie Feiler, Logan Hall Helen Bamber, Leon Greenman Israel, as Foley issued visas for Palestine. Leaders of the Jewish community After Foley's death they planted a grove addressed more than 500 guests at the for him. But his story was unknown in Yom Hashoah event hosted by the UK's Britain until the publication of his Pinner Synagogue Yad Vashem committee at Logan Hall. biography by Da/7y Telegraph defence Leon Greenman OBE and Helen Bamber The event also commemorated the correspondent Michael Smith in 1999 - OBE spoke movingly of their contrasting Warsaw Ghetto uprising and VE Day, which also led to his being declared a experiences of Nazi tyranny as part of this marking the 60th anniversary of the end Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem. year's Yom Hashoah event, which is ofthe Second World War Now Frank Foley's moral stand and commemorated annually at Pinner Among the speakers were the Chief tearing up of the rule book' is lauded by Synagogue. Rabbi, Dr Jonathan Sacks, and Rabbi government ministers, as represented Steven Katz of the Hendon Reform Speaking in front of the Lady Mayor of by Des Browne at the ceremony and by Synagogue. Both spoke ofthe need to be Harrow, their Excellencies the the plaque placed in the British vigilant with regard to rising Ambassadors of the Netherlands, the embassy in Berlin last November But at antisemitism in Britain. Czech Republic and Hungary and the time it was a different story - when representatives of the Polish and Russian he was considered a nuisance to British The audience also heard from Ben embassies, Leon Greenman, a survivor of interests but too valuable a spy Helfgott, Chairman of the Yad Vashem several concentration camps who was (officially a passport control officer) to committee and survivor of several Nazi deported from Holland to Auschwitz in be ditched. concentration camps, on his experiences in Poland in the first days of the Second 1943, described his ordeal at the hands of In addition to Highbridge committee World War, as well as from His Excellency the Nazis. members and clerics - Foley was a the Ambassador of Israel, Zvi Heifetz. devout Catholic - the ceremony was Helen Bamber, who established the addressed by Baroness Rabbi Dr Julia Sir Martin Gilbert CBE described Medical Foundation for the Care of Neuberger, Jonathan Lewis from the movingly the impact made by Holocaust Victims of Torture in 1985, recalled her Board of Deputies, and Malcolm survivors and refugees who came to memories of entering Bergen-Belsen Weisman, representing the Chief Rabbi. Britain before and after the Second shortly after its liberation to help World War. The Chairman of the A choir of pupils from Clifton rehabilitate former inmates and spoke of Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and College's Jewish house, Polack's House, her promise to one dying man: 'I will be Women, Ronald Shelley, spoke of the came from Bristol to give a flavour of yourwitness.' courage of the 50,000 British Jewish Jewish song, adding to the inter- In his opening address. His Excellency members of the British forces as his cultural atmosphere with Adon Otam The Ambassador of the Netherlands, members, bearing AJEX flags, marched sung to the tune of The Yellow CountJandeMarchantetd'Ansembourg, into the auditorium. Submarine. referred to the efforts his country made The event was chaired by Henry Ruth Rotherberg to come to terms with its history on the Grunwald, President of the Board of sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Deputies Holland. Michael Newman Members of the Third Generation JACKMAN • AJR Heads of Department performed the play The Story of Max and Gordon Greenfield Finance Shmiiek Farber and participated in a SILVERMAN Carol Rossen Administration and Personnel moving candle-lighting ceremony along COMMERCIAL PROPERTY CONSULTANTS Marcia Goodman Social Services with survivors and liberators of Michael Newman Media and concentration camps. Public Relations The evening, which was attended by a AJR Journal record audience of almost 500, was Howard Spier Editorial and Production 26 Conduit Street, WIR 9TA organised by Gaby Glassman, a member Andrea Goodmaker Telephone: 020 7409 0771 Fax: 020 7493 8017 of the AJR's Management Committee. Secretarial/Advertisements Michael Newman AJR JOURNAL JUNE 2005 My country NEWTONS Peter Prager Leading Hampstead Solicitors advise on When I left I was full of hate the Home Office showed that I had Property, Wills, Family Trusts for the country. I was furious when embraced Nazi racial laws. and Charitable Trusts people described me as 'German' and Israel was my country of the mind. would explain: 'I am a Jewish refugee The brother of my maternal grandfather French and German spoken from Germany.' When I appeared before went to Palestine in 1933 and opened Home visits arranged a tribunal in 1939 to establish my status, the first psychiatric hospital in Haifa. A the magistrate asked me: 'Do you want 22 Fitzjohn's Avenue, cousin became chief of staff of the London NWS 5NB to be repatriated after the war?' I Israeli navy and my aunt was a founder replied: 'Definitely not' So my aUen's Tel: 020 7435 5351 of Youth Aliya. But my real passion for Fax: 020 7435 8881 registration book contained the footnote Israel was the kibbutzim - to me as a 'Does not wish to be repatriated.' When socialist the ideal society. During the in 1947 I apphed for naturalisation I put 1967 war I supported Israel in a debate 'stateless' as my nationality. The Home at East Ham College of Technology, Office wrote to me: 'According to our where I was teaching. records, you are German. Why did you Then came the settlements. At first, I CONSULTANT write stateless?' I rephed: 'I am a Jew accepted the government's explanation to long established English and therefore cannot be German.' The that they were for defensive purposes Solicitors (bi-lingual German) would be happy to assist clients Home Office accepted this and I became only. But when I visited Israel with the British. with English, German and Leo Baeck College and we walked Austrian problems. I did not teach my children German - through Hebron's market street, I Contact Henry Ebner for which they later criticised me. When noticed the hateful looks from the in 1954 I applied for a job teaching Palestinians. Though enthused by Oslo, Myers Ebner & Deaner history the headmaster asked if I would I was perturbed that even under Rabin 103 Shepherds Bush Road teach (ierman instead. I accepted settlement building continued. Then London W6 7LP because I wanted so much to teach in a came the second intifada. The Israeli Telephone 020 7602 4631 selective school. Soon I realised that if human rights organisation B'Tselem ALL LEGAL WORK one teaches a language one must have reported that in 2003, 82 Palestinians UNDERTAKEN empathy for the country whose died at checkpoints because they could language it is and this I did not have. So I not get medical assistance in time; 52 read about recent history and concluded women gave birth at checkpoints, that one must differentiate between resulting in the deaths of 17 children. AUSTRIAN and GERMAN Nazis, non-Nazis and anti-Nazis. This Israel my country of the mind? Never. PENSIONS satisfied me for the time being. I am of course a cosmopolitan, but About ten years ago the German England always had a special attraction PROPERTY government offered a pension to former for me. My father spent several years as RESTITUTION CLAIMS German Jews provided they re-applied an apprentice in Bond Street and always EAST GERMANY - BERLIN for their (ierman nationality. Some of spoke highly of English tolerance. my friends preferred to go without their When I came to England I not only fled On instructions our office will pension rather than become Gennan persecution but came to a country for assist to deal with your applications and pursue the matter nationals. A firiend asked: 'Do you which I had the greatest regard. I have with the authorities. beheve in Hitler's racial theories?' 'Of lived most of my life in England, my wife course not, that is a stupid question.' and children are English, and the For further information 'Who took your German nationality English way of life is my way of life. and an appointment away?' 'Hitler of course.' 'Don't you see In 19401 was at an Old Vic production please contact: that refusing to become German again of Shakespeare's Richard II. When John ICS CLAIMS means you agree with the Niuremberg of Gaunt recited the famous Unes 'this 146-154 Kilburn High Road Laws, which stated that Jews caimot be blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this London NW6 4JD Germans?' Conceding that he was right, England', the audience burst into I became a German citizen again. It took applause. I joined in. I have no doubt Tel: 020 7328 7251 (Ext. 107) a Fax: 020 7624 5002 me some time to realise that my letter to that my country is England. ( I AJR JOURNAL JUNE 2005

Arts and Events Diary A visit to the doctor JUNE 2005 Martha Blend Until 21 August 2005 'Closing the I came to my foster parents as a mystery name and qualifications. As you stepped Door? Immigrants to Britain 1905- 2005'. Special exhibition marking the parcel, propelled out of Austria by through the door you entered a short centenary of the 1905 Aliens Act. desperate parents who weren't allowed corridor. To the right of this was a small Jewish Museum, Camden Town to come with me. All that was known room devoid of all ornament where a Until 2 Oct 2005 The Last Goodbye: about me was my age - nine years - and huddle of patients of all ages sat on hard The Rescue of Children from Nazi my name. My foster mother soon set benches. Between this waiting room Europe'. Exhibition on the about examining the parcel. Advancing and the consulting room was a wooden . Jewish Museum, on my hair, she squeezed on it with a partition. There were gaps in the planks Finchley sticky substance called soft soap and which allowed not only light but voices Until 2008 The Children's War'. to escape. 'When did you last?' or 'It's began a vigorous scrubbing. Next, a Exhibition on children in the Second toothcomb was used to scarify my scalp her chest playing up, doctor' could be World War, incorporating the with an action like a plough harrowing a clearly heard through the gap but no one Kindertransport story. Imperial War furrow. Bowels were of particular seemed to mind this breach of privacy. Museum. Tel 020 7416 5000 importance to her, and I soon learned it When it was our turn to see the doctor Thur 2 Prof Simon Sibelman, 'Happy as was politic to answer her daily question we entered a room no bigger than a God in France: The French, the Jews 'Did you have your bowels open?' in the ship's cabin. Most of the space was and Antisemitism', London Jewish affirmative. Otherwise, a battery of taken up by a large mahogany desk Cultural Centre, King's College, remedies ranging from the mild to the behind which sat Dr Rose, bald and Kidderpore Avenue, London NW3, explosive would be applied along with bespectacled. As my foster mother 7.30 pm. Tel 020 7431 0345, the obligatory cod liver oil and malt. explained the reason for our visit, he Mon 6 Hans Seelig MA, The Composer While I was immersed in my foster listened while fi^om the comer of his Arthur Honegger (d. 1955)'. Club 43 mother's tin bath, she scrutinised me mouth dangled a cigarette with so long a Wed 8 Dr Nicholas Wachsmann closely to see if I had the right number of trail of ash it seemed to defy gravity. You (Birkbeck College), 'Prisons and whatever was needed. Though satisfied hoped that when it did land, it wouldn't Camps: Terror and Confinement in on the whole, she thought she detected drop on you. Putting it down into a tray Nazi Germany'. Lecture series by a bone in my foot which was not pointing that was already well filled, the doctor Wiener Library, Centre for German- in the right direction and a gland in my examined my foot, banged my knee Jewish Studies and Leo Baeck Institute. Venue: Wiener Library, 7.00 pm. neck bigger than it ought to be. So off we with a hammer and felt my neck. He Tel 020 7580 3493 went to the doctor. then pronounced foot and neck to be Mon 13 Club 43. Annual general Dr Rose had a siurgery on the main within the range of the normal and my meeting road in a converted shop. A skimpy foster mother left, reassiured, after curtain almost covered what had once pressing some coins into his palm. I was Mon 20 Dr Nicholas Worrall (Middlesex been the shop window and a brass plate thankful that the prodding and tapping University), 'Nose to Nose. Gogol's Short Story and Shostakovich's on the wall proclaimed the doctor's were over. Opera: A Nasal Encounter'. Club 43 Thur 23 The Media and Immigration. ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING Panel discussion, Jewish Museum, News by email Camden Town, 7.00 pm From time to time the AJR will ASSOCIATION OF JEWISH Mon 27 Ernst Fleisch MA, 'A Trip be sending out by email REFUGEES through Bangladesh and Northern information about our Sunday 19 June 2005 India (with Slides)'. Club 43 activities as well as details of at 3.00 pm forthcoming events and news at ORGANISATION CONTACTS of particular interest to the Club 43 Belsize Square Synagogue. refugee community. If you The Paul Balint AIR Day Centre 15 Cleve Road, London NW6 Meetings 7.45 pm. Contact Hans Seelig would like to receive tel 01442 254360 information about these Guest speaker Ned Temko Jewish Museum, Camden Town developments, which will also 'Looking Back, Looking Forward: tel 020 72841997 be included in the following 15 Years at the JC Jewish Museum, Finchley tel 020 month's Journal, please send For further details please telephone 72841997 an email to [email protected] 020 8385 3070 Wiener Library tel 020 7636 7247 AJR JOURNAL JUNE 2005

Return to 'a land of refugees' Annual conference Eve R. Kugler of child survivors

In 1940 and 1941, when I was 10,1 lived in The World Federation of Jewish France in Chateau Montintin, run by the Child Survivors of the Holocaust is OSE (Organisation de Secours aux an umbrella organisation of Enfants). Late last year I returned to the groups of Child Survivors. As area for a colloquium on 'Jewish Children children, we experienced Nazi in Limousin from 1940 to I960'. persecution in Europe in one form Attending were various academics and or another The World Federation those of us who had been Jewish children comprises more than 50 Child in OSE homes or hidden by the Resistance and the OSE. The academics Survivors' groups worldwide. Each had researched the history. We were group is an independent self-help invited to give first-handtestimon y at the group offering mutual support. two-day event. There were also Eve Kugler, with Norbert Rosenblum, on the Since 1988 the World Federation programmes and tours of interest to us, steps at La Chevrette - the same steps on has sponsored annual conferences the subjects ofthe colloquium. which her parents were photographed of Child Survivors including 63 years earlier There was a great deal of press and TV Kindertransportees and Hidden coverage of the returnees. During the 1944 the Waffen-SS burned 643 Children. Those meetings, held so colloquium major points made were that inhabitants ofthe small village to death. far in North America, Europe and the OSE sheltered children coming firom I was taken to Le Couret chateau, an Israel, have attracted upwards of Paris and from camps in the Vichy- OSE home deep in the Limousin 300 attendees from around the controlled area of France in 11 castles countryside, where my mother became world. The conferences have been and houses throughout Limousin. the cook in autumn 1941, after my sister addressed by important speakers Among those who helped place and save and I left for America as part of the on issues which concern us, and Jewish children in addition to the OSE Quaker children's transport. Le Couret is feature workshops targeting not and the Resistance were the French surrounded by mountains, where my only survivors but also spouses and Jewish Scout Organisation, priests and parents hid in 1942. Could I have done the Second Generation. ordinary gentiles. Limoges became 'a what they did when Resistance workers Until relatively recently many land of refugees'. told them it was their only option after Child Survivors were reluctant to Policemen sometimes warned families Vichy issued an arrest warrant for them? discuss their experiences. when raffles (general arrests) were Standing there on a cold, wet October However, over the last 10 to 20 imminent. In one small village with 82 day, I was in awe about what they had years that has changed. Being Jews only one was deported. About 30 done and endiured. together with other Child per cent of French people were willing to On our last day we went back to Survivors in a relaxed social help Jewish children. Most of the Montintin. We already knew that we atmosphere enables us to discuss children who did not siurvive were non- would not be able to go inside the our experiences should we wish to French. chateau, but could view it only through a do so. For many of us, being At a 'round table' for the retiu^nees, the high-security fence installed by the together is sufficient. most notable point made by several current owner. We did, however, go to La The 17th Annual Conference, speakers was that children were Chevrette, the OSE home for Orthodox entitled 'Still Going Strong 1945- sometimes misused, abused, and even children up the hill firom Montintin, 2005', will take place in raped by farmers and others who where my mother was the cook before Le provided shelter. Even gentile children Couret. I have a photo of my parents Amsterdam on 19-22 August. were maltreated. standing on a small porch on top of a flight There are several ways of An exhibit about the 90-year history of of stone stairs leading into the house. I obtaining further information. Go the OSE showed that by August 1942 the stared at the spot, oblivious to the to the website, where you can also OSE and the Resistance had managed to pouring rain, then slowly made my way register for the Congress (but note hide 1,600 Jewish children. Through up the steps to where they had stood. the Dutch spelling of congres!) at OSE's efforts 4,000 children were saved Norbert Rosenblum, who had lived at La www.congres2005.nl, send an e- from deportation, including arguably the Chevrette, was standing next to me. We mail to [email protected], most famous resident of an OSE home, passed our cameras to his wife to take a send a fax to 003120-4421809, or Marcel Marceau. photo of us there. What my parents had write to J.C.S. Congres 2005, The tours took us through wartime lived through became truly real for me. It Postbus 74761, NL-1070 BT Limoges and the surrounding areas. We was an overwhelming, deeply moving Amsterdam, Holland. visited Oradour sur Glane, where in June experience. Henri Obstfeld AJR JOURNAL JUNE 2005

chosen 'Jewish' as his nationality. I must add, however, that in the very first shop I entered in , with fm'nmi% The Editor reserves the right my haircut giving me away as a to shorten correspondence KZnik, I was greeted with 'Too many submitted for publication of you lot have come back!'when, in fact, there were rather few of us. Frank Bright Ipswich

•THE JEWEL IN THE CROWN" First World War service by Jews in the HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF Sir - With reference to the letter from German army being in any way F Lustig in your May issue, Mr recognised during the Nazi period On the subject of internment, my Grunberger was The jewel in the (letter, February 2005). My uncle Fritz mother's family settled in this crown'. was a Matrose (sailor) in the country in the late 1880s. My father Edith Fulton Kriegsmarine (German Navy) in arrived here at the turn of the century, where he met and married London NW4 1914-18 and was decorated with the Iron Cross. He was deported on 6 my mother. As a consequence ofthe outbreak of the First World War, my Sir - One yearns for the days of that March 1943 on the 35th transport from Grunewald Station, the father - as an Austrian and therefore brilliant editor Werner Rosenstock departure point for over 53,000 enemy alien - was interned on the and AJR Information at tiny Fairfax Berlin Jews, many with war service, Isle of Man until 1918. Meanwhile, Mansions, when articles were to Auschwitz and murdered there. my mother and my siblings were unbiased and always of the highest Under an order dated 1 September repatriated to Austria by the Red calibre. A successor to Richard 1941 Jews were not permitted to Cross. My father followed after his Grunberger must be found from wear medals, decorations or other release. We were lucky to be able to among professional writers outside insignia. leave Austria in 1939. I recall the the Association who will not situation when in June 1940 some May I at the same time clarify the monopolise the magazine with their policemen arrived early one position of Jews returning to own views. morning and mentioned our family from KZs (letter, Philip Lang name, explaining that they had February 2005) by quoting from London NWl 1 orders to take me to the police Gottfried Bloch's biography Unfree station. I was only 16 at the time. My Associations: JEWS IN THE GERMAN ARMY father protested, claiming that there The struggle with the new Czech must be some mistake as he had Sir -1 refer to the three letters in your bureaucracy made me again feel like a been interned before - to no avail, of February issue regarding Jews in the refugee asking for favours, which German army before and during the touched my open wounds. Confirming course. In the event, I was sent to First World War. My grandfather, Karl my citizenship in the new Republic was Huyton, near Liverpool. Not for long Reichmann of Beuthen Oberschlesien, not easy. though. Due to my brother being served with the German army from Germans had to leave the country and English-born and serving in the 1914 to 1918 and rose to the rank of we Jews, who had lived among them and Forces, they managed to arrange my who spoke German or had been Feldwebel (sergeant). He was in release. educated in German schools, had to go charge of a Gulaschkanone (field through great efforts to prove our Robert Acker Holt kitchen) and was told that he was due identities. I had to stand in long lines to London NW3 for promotion to officer's rank when get forms for all kinds of applications just the war suddenly ended and he was to be acknowledged as a regular person 'LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER' returning home. After almost a year's demobbed. He served on the eastern Recent commemorations of the delay I was finally allowed to apply to the front, though I cannot remember in Holocaust have conjured up the Czech University [from which the which regiment. I rely on the memory Germans had expelled him] to complete derogatory image of the Jews as of an eight-year-old boy, but my medical studies. For my degree I had mere victims, who went 'like lambs remember seeing at least one medal to take final examinations in all subjects, to the slaughter'. When will this that my grandfather won. Until the this time in Czech, and finally graduated slanderous canard be laid to rest? Nazis came to power, he was always from medical school on 31 January 1947. Consider the realities. At first, the proud of his military service. Being 14 years younger, I had no Nazis successfully disguised their Frank Reichmann such problem. I had been born in genocidal intent and it takes little North Leigh, Oxon Berlin, was fluent in Czech, and my imagination to perceive that, while father, when applying for Czech there seemed some hope of survival, Sir -1 do not share the optimistic view citizenship in Vladivostok in 1919 - Jews would hesitate to take action of your contributors on the matter of he had been an Austrian PoW - had that might endanger their families. AJRJOURNAL JUNE 2005

However, once these constraints no FORGET, FORGIVE, REMEMBER longer operated, the Jews of Sir - Only the last of these should ARE YOU ON A LOW occupied Europe, acting under the apply to our generation and it will INCOMEANDINNEED most debilitating circumstances, probably take another 100 years OF HOMECARE HELP? fought as nobly as those Jews serving before the terrors of the Holocaust in the Allied forces including, despite are only remembered. We have had AJR might be able to offer you British restrictions, the Yishuv's epic examples in the massacres of the financial assistance for cleaning, contribution. Armenians by the Turks and the Tutsis gardening and caring. As in the First World War, some 1.5 by the Hutus yet we visit Spain Members who might not million Jews fought in the Second without reflecting on the Inquisition. othenvise be able to afford World War, thereby exceeding in Yes, we cannot hold the present homecare please contact: absolute and relative terms the share younger generation in Germany Estelle Brookner, Secretary of many who were lauded as major culpable for the sins of their AIR Social Services Dept allies. They furnished a grandfathers. It is a fact that many Tel: 020 8385 3070 disproportionate number of officers, German youngsters spend their gap including some 250 generals (188 of year working in Jewish Care homes these were promoted in the Red fulfilling every kind of task. Army through sheer merit on the Anthony Goldsmith Companions battle field), gained an above Wembley, Middx of London average number of awards and lost Incofporating as many in battle - some 250,000, 'THE FIRST FINAL SOLUTION' Hampstead Home Care not counting large resistance losses - Sir - Regarding the possible entry of as the . All this A long established company Turkey into the EU (February issue), it against prejudice even from their providing care in your home would bea welcome gesture if Turkey compatriots. Unfortunately, much of would at least acknowledge, and Assistance with personal care this record remains unheralded General household duties apologise for, the First 'Final Solution' because nations have little interest in Respite care - namely the deportation and Medical appointment service disclosing the part played by Jewish massacre of 1,500,000 Armenian citizens. men, women and children in 1915 in 'OUR CARE IS YOUR CARE' In camps housing many the most dreadful and barbaric 2/0213 nationalities only the Jews, apart circumstances. said in from Soviet prisoners, eventually August 1939: 'Who today remembers rose in hopeless revolt, emulating the the extermination of the Armenians?' A, SPRING desperate heroism of the Warsaw The Holocaust was the Second 'Final GROVE Ghetto fighters. Those who Solution'. Lest we all forget! 214 Finchley Road managed to escape 'liquidation' J J Beagle London NWS played an exceptionally prominent London NW2 London's Most Luxurious role in the resistance throughout RETIREMENT HOME Europe, despite hostile environments REFUGEES IN SHANGHAI in which they found themselves • Entertainment-Activities Sir - I was very interested in the • Stress Free Living ostracised, harassed, betrayed and reference to Jewish refugees in • 24 Hour Staffing • Excellent Cuisine ultimately even murdered, especially • Full En-Suite Facilities Shanghai and the fact that the by the Polish NSZ faction. Japanese invasion of China did not Call for more information The Jews were neither passive nor lead to their extermination (Inside or a personal tour accidental victims of Nazism. They the AJR: Liverpool, April issue). Last 020 8446 2117 were targeted as its first and year in New Jersey we visited or 020 7794 4455 foremost victims. The reverse side of someone who was born in [email protected] the coin that inaccurately portrays and educated in Shanghai. On his the Jews as unresisting martyrs bookshelves together with two or shows a people in the vanguard of Simon R Rhodes M.Ch.S. three memoirs of people with similar STATE REGISTERED CHIROPODIST the fight against Nazism on all fronts. experiences, was an account of a Its heroes do not deserve to be Surgeries at: Japanese attempt to set aside an area 67 Kilburn High Road, NW6 (opp M&S) neglected for there has been no as a Jewish refuge. Of course, this Telephone 020 7624 1576 break in the Jewish tradition of came to an end with Japan's entry 3 Queens Close (off Green Lane) resistance to tyranny since the into the war on Germany's side. Edgware, Middx HA87PU ancient Hebrews. Telephone 020 8905 3264 S. Goodman George Schlesinger Visiting chiropody service available Kingswinford, West Midlands Durham AJR JOURNAL JUNE 2005

Hiller's photography implies emptiness: either the shots are devoid of people or they show the elderly, who REVIEWS would have remembered their Jewish neighbours. A postman dips into his red THEATRE bag as though seeking long-gone names in a Jewish street. An old woman walks Not quite Wiener schnitzel along with a stick by a lovely lake in The mean streets of Germany are Judengasse. The leafy lanes with their PROFESSOR BERNHARDI featured in Susan Killer's highly birds and quacking ducks are as pastoral by Arthur Schnitzler original video installation The J-Street as Beethoven's Sixth Symphony, with Areola Theatre, Dalston, London Project at the Timothy Taylor joggers flowing by in luminous colours. Gallery. During the last three years Hiller covered the entire map of In summer or winter Hiller has One can hardly imagine a greater Germany, fromFlensbur g in the north to captured a sense of darkness, of narrow contrast between two locations of this Munich in the south, fromDiisseldor f in roads or paths through which a single play than a recent Vienna production at the west to Dresden in the east. The truck or street cleaner emerges. You the palatial Theater in der Josefstadt result is over 300 photographs and 67 would not believe, perhaps, that a silent and the current London production at film - silent in the sense that no one minutes of voiceless film which show the Areola Theatre, a converted speaks and consisting purely of how Jewish street names have been warehouse a stone's throw from this deafening street sounds - could be this preserved in a country which eradicated one-time stomping-ground of Mosley's evocative. In one expressive track, you all Jewish life. spiritual successors, the neo-Nazis, with can hear a Yiddish lament almost the neighbouring Stoke Newington drowned out by the violence of traffic orthodox Jewish community as their noise. target. How ironic that this venue was What makes the installation effective chosen for staging an adaptation of the is the fact that it demands the use of all great Austro-Jewish playwright's your senses. In watching it, you allow 'serious comedy', whose principal the rural or urban world to pass you by theme is antisemitism. with all its sounds of life - birdsong or Rewriting the play rather than using a car horn - and the only symbol that literal translation proved a great stands as an eternal fixture is thejewish success, since the aptly chosen English street name. Where Jews once hung out phraseology conveys the intended their washing you can now see Turks meaning vividly. All credit to Samuel engaged in the same domestic chores. Adamson for doing an excellent job. What is Hiller telling us? That Hitler's Equally, bearing in mind the limited Schadenfreude succeeded in preserving resources ofthe Oxford Stage Company Jewishness as a museum icon? That and the Dumbfounded Theatre, the Jewry's vanished six million are a director, Mark Rosenblatt, must be testimony to man's forgotten congratulated for this imaginative inhumanity to man? That the Jewish production. All the same, Rosenblatt essence remains and can never be fails to find the essential Viennese eradicated? ambience and his Bernhardi is about as Other mean streets are evoked in the echt Wien as Wiener schnitzel cooked in latest art trend which solemnifies tomato sauce. While Schnitzler confines heel-clicking to the Susan Hiller Bamberg Judenstrasse graffiti. Outside Institute, a new Timothy Taylor Gallery gallery off London's Edgware Road, is academically retarded scoundrel the first to place urban art on gallery Hochroitzpointner when he meets his It is a haunting dedication. The names walls. Protest art of the type splashed former superior officer. Regimental symbolise life's seasons. The eerie onto the New York subway is Doctor Schreimann, the prototype of peace of a snowscape gives way to introduced by artists with names like an early twentieth-century Austro- birdsong in a springtime leafy suburb. D'^Face, the inspiration behind the Jewish antisemite, Rosenblatt indulges Even where the street names have gallery. Street slogans generate throughout in an epidemic of Prussian disappeared, Hiller offers a subjective irreverent splashes of primary colour. heel-clicking, enough to make vision of the places which once knew Business is brisk, report the curators, Schnitzlerturn in his grave. them: Judenberg, Judenstrasse, with up to 250 visitors a day. But the Having got this Beckmesserism off my Judenbach, Judenweg - even question is whether this art form is best chest, I hasten to add that no praise is Juifenstrasse in a French adaptation - or expressed undergroimd. I would say too high for the magnificent direction Judenerstrasse. One post-war street is graffiti loses its heart when it goes and casting of a team of outstanding even named after Anne Frank. mainstream. actors. First and foremost, Christopher Godwin's tour de force. Professor AJRJOURNAL JUNE 2005

Bernhardi, a performance of truly stories are gripping. His discussion of FILM international calibre. When discovering the material is frank and honest, that two - in some cases, even three - presenting the casualties and Doom-laden bacchanale parts are played brilliantly by the same compromises as well as the 'happy actors, one's admiration holds no endings'. The reader is treated to a DOWNFALL (DER UNTERGANG) bounds, with one exception: John multitude of anecdotes, including some directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel Stahl, magnificent as Bernhardi's of Gill's own from his interviews with At selected cinemas aggressive 'aryan' supporter Dr the children as adults 'looking back' Pflugfelder, makes a disappointing over their journeys. The children's Taken simply as a work of cinema. appearance as Dr Flint, Minister of experiences come alive through Gill's Downfall succeeds triumphantly in Education and Cultural Affairs. ability to present his interviewees' evoking the frenetic claustrophobia of Schnitzler conceived Flint as a typical material in such a way as to bring out the final days of the Third Reich in Austrian politician, modelling him on the psychological state of mind behind Hitler's bunker, permeated by a Metternich, who, as a forerunner to the details. All the children experienced schizophrenic tension between hysteria Waldheim, tells such outrageous lies to some extent rejection and identity and the cult of death. Bruno Ganz's confusion, their names anglicised if not that even the opposite of his fulminating Fuhrer is entirely completely changed and labels thrust statements tends to be totally convincing, the physical likeness upon them such as 'reffo'. Many parents mendacious; he is suave, diplomatic, chillingly real and even the voice almost made heart-rending sacrifices to send garnished with Viennese Schmah, a replica, according to Hitler's their children to safety but the children making his points by being particularly biographer Ian Kershaw. Surrounded by still felt abandoned. Many became sotto voce. Much as I regret to say it, the a band of fanatical devotees, with' 'more British than the Brits' yet still felt Ulrich Matthes's Goebbels standing out blustering, shouting John Stahl is no 'different' and only 'second class'. Some as strikingly sinister, the doom-laden Flint. Nevertheless, all in all, a superb were treated cruelly. The sadism of the bacchanale inside the bunker presents a performance. Christian Brothers, who played a major defiant contrast to the din of artillery Fred Rosner role in the story of the Orphans of the from the advancing Russian army. Empire, figures again in Gill's account of Very much in this vein is the the children who escaped the Nazi impromptu party thrown by a manic Casualties, compromises terror by going to Australia. Some Eva Braun, skilfully played by Juliane suffered lasting psychological damage Kohler, which becomes a virtual dance and happy endings while others made a brilliant success of of death. Eva's counterpart is the rabidly their lives. INTERRUPTED JOURNEYS: YOUNG earnest Magda Goebbels (Corinne Harfouch), unremitting in her refusal to REFUGEES FROM HITLER'S REICH A sobering fact, with which Gill countenance any future beyond by Alan Gill begins the first chapter, is that less than National Socialism. Simon & Schuster, 2004, £10.99 1 per cent of Jewish children in Nazi- In contrast to these demonic occupied Europe survived. He makes it personalities, a few figures stand out, clear that many more might have been As his first book. Orphans of the principally TraudI Junge, Hitler's rescued, but the obstacles were legion. Empire, demonstrated, Alan Gill has an secretary, played by the charming Apart from the time factor - Jewish immense interest in children and what Alexandra Maria Lara, who comes families laboured under the delusion happens to them when they are across as a fresh-faced innocent, and wrenched from their families and that Nazi persecution would 'blow over' Ernst Gunther Schenck, an SS doctor homes and their journey into adulthood - deep-rooted antisemitism or who appears genuinely concerned to is disrupted. Hence the title of his latest indifference towards Jews made rescue alleviate the suffering of the civilian book, which focuses on children from a operations difficult even when there population. Also a touch removed from variety of backgrounds, Jewish and was good intent. Humanitarian concern the generally inebriated rabble non-Jewish, particularly those of the was at a premium. Both the Australian surrounding the Fuhrer are Albert Kindertransport, the ORT schools, the and British governments and their Speer, Hitler's architect, clearly more Dunera voyage and the Vienna Mozart potential host communities panicked at sophisticated, and SS General Fegelein, Boy's Choir stranded in Australia when thethoughtof'being invaded by hordes Himmler's liaison officer, who is married World War II began. The recent release of Jews'. The Jewish communities in to Eva Braun's sister Fegelein's very of archival material in Australia enabled both countries were concerned that an human anxiety about his pregnant wife Gill to find fresh sources. Sadly, even influx of refugees would exacerbate and his desire to live, and to save his sister-in-law from the infernal trap in with the new legislation on making antisemitism. Australia imposed quotas which she has chosen to be caught, are, documents public, Britain still has a on Jewish immigrants and enforced of course, grounds for his execution. 100-years secrecy order on the Dunera them callously, as did the British in documents. Palestine. Similar panic reactions are The presence in the film of these rampant today in response to asylum This book is no less compelling seemingly more congenial characters is seekers and gypsy travellers. reading than Orphans of the Empire. an artistically effective foil but is Although it is packed with factual data, Ruth Barnett historically problematic. It cannot be Gill's prose flows effortlessly and the coincidental that the film draws greatly AJR JOURNAL JUNE 2005 on TraudI Junge's memoir and on books Gerda Mayer chronicles their by Speer and Schenck. Schenck's service disintegration as they realise that the Letter from Israel in the Waffen-SS in the USSR is not assimilation process they have taken for Dorothea Shefer-Vanson mentioned in the film, nor are his granted is over and begin the fruitless medical experiments on inmates at 'emigration game'. Mercilessly critical of My father's cousin Hilde was 97 Mauthausen. While TraudI is addressed relatives and friends alike, she is no less years old when I visited her several as 'Frau Junge', there is no sign of any averse to scrupulous self-analysis, wrily weeks ago. Like him, she grew up in husband. Moreover, while the real giving voice to her childhood dreams Hamburg in the 1920s, but left her elderly TraudI Junge 'confesses' at the and ambitions, her petty jealousies, her home to settle in what was then end of the film that her youth and guilt and awakening sexual feelings. Palestine in 1932, before Hitler ignorance were no justification for There is more than a touch of Anne came to power. Widowed at the age condoning the regime's atrocities, she Frank. And never far behind is the of 80, she remained fiercely could be seen as disingenuous: while humour ofthe spiteful schoolgirl: 'I turn independent, and insisted on living she did not formally join the Nazi Party around to land a punch on the little boy on her own to the end, accepting until 1944, her Nazi pedigree was sitting behind me; not in order to inflict only minimal help. immaculate and she was deemed GBH but merely to relieve the tedium.' As a young woman she joined a worthy of marrying Hitler's orderly, Hans The diary her father had been Zionist youth group and trained as a Junge, who was killed in action in keeping, which 'began in ardour has dental technician. The Hamburg Normandy in 1944. ended in disillusion', Gerda Mayer Jewish community wisely housed While concern has been expressed at muses 60 years later Consumed with all its youth movements under one the film's depiction of certain human the bitterness of what might have been, roof, enabling the different traits in the Fuhrer himself - his affection she concludes: ideological views to mingle. When for children and his dog, and his All the leaves have lost their trees. he was granted a certificate to go to avuncular demeanour towards TraudI, Child, what tumbled words are the Land of Israel, they decided to for example - these traits appear to these? get married and go together be historically accurate. Had Hitler Yet I grieve for my lost tree; Hilde was already old and bent been no more than a monster, could Far away the wind bore me. when I first visited her about ten he have inspired such devotion? More years ago, though I could see from problematic is the intimation that the Howard Spier her photographs that she had once German people themselves were the been a handsome young woman. ultimate victims of Hitler's She and her husband had both demented gang. WANTED TO BUY worked hard, she in her profession Emma Klein German and and he in his, though once their children were bom she stopped English Books working as a dental technician and 'All the leaves have lost their Established bookdealer worked alongside her husband, who was one ofthe first in Israel to grow trees' (AJR member) flowers commercially. always welcomes Invitations Hamburg always remained close PRAGUE WINTER to view and purchase to Hilde's heart. Even at her by Gerda Mayer valuable books advanced age she could remember Heanng Eye (Box 1, 99 Torriano Avenue, the Friday night family gatherings in For an immediate response, London NWS2RX), 2005, 53pp., £8.95 please contact: her grandparents' home, the subjects Robert Hornung of conversation and the cakes and There is far more to this tiny, 2 Mount View, Ealing, delicacies her grandmother baked. immaculately produced book than London WS IPR She even sang me the song her uncle meets the eye. Flitting between prose Email: [email protected] (my grandfather) had written in Tel: 020 8998 0546 and poetry, between past and present, honour of his parents' golden (Spm to 9pm is best) between Karlsbad, where she was born, wedding, her eyes twinkling and her and London, where she lives now, voice still clear. between what she was and what To have total recall at the age of 97 became of her, Gerda Mayer has written Annely Ju6a Fine Art is a mixed blessing, as many of a deeply painful memoir. Hilde's memories were painful. 23 Dering Street The events portrayed in the book cover Although 1 had fiiUy expected to join Hitler's annexation of the Sudeten in (off New Bond Street) her in celebrating her centenary, the September 1938 and the short time that Tel: 020 7629 7578 end came, suddenly and without elapses before the author's departure on Fax: 020 7491 2139 warning, just a few days ago. For the Kindertransport. Depicting the me, it is as if the last link with the mental and physical upheaval caused to CONTEMPORARY PAINTING past I have endeavoured to get to her family by the unprecedented AND SCULPTURE know has gone. situation in which they find themselves.

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A friendlygreetin g met me as I stepped In August 1938 George made his way into the surprisingly small comer office to Wobum House, the headquarters of occupied by the avuncular figure of Lord PROFILE the British Refugee Relief Organisation, Weidenfeld, seated behind an oak desk and to what he generously describes as Ronald Channing piled high with manuscripts. Its location 'a moniunent to the kindheartedness in St Martins Lane is close by the and solidarity of British Jews towards English National Opera and the National their expatriate Jewish kinsfolk in Portrait Gallery, on whose boards he has George Weidenfeld Central Europe'. Several indefatigable served. He continues to enjoy his place ladies 'took my life in hand': the as co-founder and eminence grise of one History's man 'formidable' Mrs Schwab, grandmother ofthe world's leading literary publishing of today's Baroness Julia Neuberger, houses, but few have also achieved such moved him to Highgate, and Mrs de international recognition and gained Rothschild sent him to the Zionist such a degree of influence on many headquarters at 77 Great Russell Street, world statesmen. For most of his 85 where he was taken on as a volunteer years he has been where history was translator. It was the perfect entree into made, while preserving his Jewish the world of the great Zionist leaders, identity and love for the reborn state of including Chaim Weizmann. In June thejewish people. 1939 he was overjoyed to welcome both parents at London's Victoria Station. Arthur George Weidenfeld was bom in Vienna in 1919 amidst the poverty and Following Hitler's invasion of misery of the defeat of Austria and the Czechoslovakia, George replied to a collapse of the Austro-Hungarian newspaper advert for foreign linguists monarchy. The city's Jewish population to man a BBC monitoring service. It was approached 300,000, swollen by refuges the beginning of a seven-year love affair from the Empire's outlying provinces. as a journalist, scriptwriter, presenter of His father, whose family were mainly German-language news programmes, doctors, lawyers and businessmen, was commentator and, from the tender age an academic-cum-insurance executive, a of 22, 'our European Correspondent', romantic and a teacher; his mother was broadcasting in English for the BBC's the daughter of one of European Jewry's North American, Afiican and Pacific great rabbinical dynasties. They lived Chief Rabbi Kook, for the first time services: 'My output was prodigious. I frugally and, as an only child, he was marching with Jews in their own land, churned out something like 20 somewhat withdrawn. At the which 'gave me a thrilling sense of programmes a week.' It also opened the Piaristengymnasium for the sons of solidarity'. Back home, he took the oath door to his making unrivalled contacts. professional people and civil servants, of thejewish student fraternity Giskala, On his firstpost-wa r return to Vienna, his favourite subjects were history, addressed Zionist meetings, made blue- George was overcome with its utter German literature and, especially, Latin. and-white box house collections, and desolation and the realisation that none Science and technology remain to this even learned sabre fencing! of his family or friends was to be found. day something of a closed world to him. In 1938 he registered as a law student He ran into Graham Greene, sent by Sir He has never learned to drive. at the University of Vienna and at the Alexander Korda and Carol Reed to He vividly recalls witnessing in 1931 Konsularakademie, the country's research the script for what became the from the apartment window a huge prestigious diplomatic college, a all-time film classic. The Third Man. disciplined column of Brownshirts cosmopolitan world of young men and After the war, he established with chorusing 'Germany awake, Judah women confident of their places among Nigel Nicolson the successful magazine perish!' and 'Heil Hitler!'. In 1934 he the future governing classes. After the Contact. When in 1948 Israel Sieff, who attended a Zionist meeting in thejewish Anschluss a certain Kurt Waldheim ran Marks & Spencer with Simon second district to hear the legendary rendered aid to George's newly Marks, invited them to publish Vladimir Jabotinsky, whose call 'to be restricted studies at substantial children's books for the company, he and tough and to fight for a Jewish state' personal risk. Within a week of the Nigel established Weidenfeld & inspired him to join Brit Trumpeldor, a annexation it was no longer safe to walk Nicolson as book publishers. Marks & militant organisation pledged to secure a in public places. With his father in Spencer was making a major sovereign homeland for the Jews in prison, George was advised by the contribution to the creation of the State Palestine. While on a family college principal to leave the country of Israel. Introduced to them by Flora Mediterranean cruise, he joined and he obtained a three-month visa for Solomon, George was 'taken up' by the thousands at the funeral in Tel Aviv of England. (Continued on page 16)

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for Israel and hope for a peaceful resolution and it was wonderful to see her enter into INSIDE in the not too distant future. Meta Roseneil the faith so wholeheartedly. A beautiful ceremony was followed by a splendid Next meeting: Wed 1 June, 10.30 am. reception. Ruthjackson theAJR Shiomit Naor, 'From Ra'anana to Redbridge' 'Justice and Jews' in Liverpool Brighton and Hove Sarid 'memorabilia' Judge Inge Bernstein spoke about a Harrogate Continentals and HMD meeting conference of judges she had attended in Two of our group had been to London for Members brought with them, or discussed, Germany on the theme 'Justice and Jews'. the Holocaust memorial events. John told items of jewellery, photos, letters, etc which Originally, she said, Jews were treated like us about his visit to St James's Palace and had particular memories or stories attached everyone else but their lives became both he and Susanne gave accounts of the to them. A most interesting meeting and a increasingly isolated from the general service in Westminster Hall. Susanne also very good way to learn more about each population. This situation was mirrored told us about her moving experiences on other Myrna Glass legally. From the nineteenth century recent visits to Cracow and Auschwitz. We onwards Jews were allowed to enter the enjoyed the usual refreshments and look Next meeting: Mon 20 June, 10.45 am. Brian legal profession. With the coming of forward to our next meeting. Rubin, 'Do Miracles Really Happen? A Victory against Cancer* National Socialism, Jews were forbidden to Inge Little (nie Steinweg) take part in the administration, teaching or practice of the law. G. Jayson Next meeting: Wed 15 June 'Israel's Red Cross' discussed in Cambridge Meeting at Homerton College, 21 members Standing ovation in West Midlands heard an excellent talk by Eli Benson of North London tour of Cabinet War (Birmingham) Magen David Adom, the Israeli equivalent of Rooms What a great pleasure Alf Keiles's the Red Cross. It was most interesting to hear Our guided tour around the Cabinet War presentation The Jewish Contribution to about the scope of this privately funded Rooms was revelatory. The conditions Jazz' was! He certainly deserved the ambulance service, which has been under which the war was conducted and in standing ovation afforded him and his equipped with the most up-to-date which Churchill and his staff lived seem to charming wife. WernerAbraham computer service. Keith Lawson us now as primitive in the extreme. Later we visited the main exhibition, which is filled Next meeting: Tues 31 May, 2.30 pm. Social Next meeting: Thur 23 June. Bettine Le with visual displays of facts and get-together at home of Ernst and Eileen Beau memorabilia enough to keep any dedicated Aris Essex's 'New Jerusalem' historian occupied for days. A satisfying, if slightly exhausting, day out. Good friends in Lewis Herlitz gave a detailed account of the Edith Vanstone welcomed us on a beautiful few Jewish families who settled in Southend Herbert Haberberg day to enjoy - once again - a meeting of during the nineteenth century, many of their Next meeting: Thur 30 June, 10.30 am. members who have become good friends. descendents still living here today. From Michael Anvoner, 'Wills: Leaving to Vour We enjoyed Edith's generous hospitality, 1911 onwards many Jewish families arrived Family Rather than to the Tax Man' our own chats, and Myrna's update of AJR here as refugees. Soon Southend had so activities. We were saddened by the news many Jewish citizens that it was given the Leeds HSFA: plight of asylum-seekers that Richard Grunberger had passed away nickname'New Jerusalem'. Julie Franks Following our annual lunch, Pamela A. Bye, Most of us had got to know him through director of KRAFT in Huddersfield, gave a one of his erudite talks to our group a few Next meeting: Tues 7 June, 11.00 am. poignant account of her work with Kurdish yea rs back. Vernon Saunders Details tba refugees and fugitives from the fighting in Pinner members' afternoon Kosovo. She detailed some of the appalling New group for Bristol-Bath area Our meeting was devoted to 'memorabilia', experiences undergone by such asylum- The inaugural meeting took place at the telling us why particular items were of seekers as well as some of the difficulties home in Bristol of Kitty Balint-Kurti, who personal significance. Items included scrap they faced on arrival in a foreign country. provided delicious refreshments. Nine books, an 'Atlantic Star' medal, the Mont Martin Kapel prospective members attended; others Blanc pen that was instrumental in getting phoned to say they couldn't make this date. Next meeting: Sun 19 June. Prof Derek permission to stay in the UK, and, most Myrna Glass gave a thumb-nail sketch of Fraser, 'Welfare State Past and Present' poignantly of all, two postcards written by a the AJR's history and activities and member's father - from the trenches in the explained how groups already established First World War and from Dachau. FORTHCOMING MEETINGS functioned. Possible dates for the next OxfordTues 21 June. Social get-together Paul Samet meeting were discussed. l/l'essexTues 28 June. Lunch with speaker David Hackel Next meeting: Thur 2 June. Photographer Michael Freedman, 'Famous Faces' East Midlands (Nottingham) Wed 29 June. llford Mid East peace optimism Get-together Tanya Stern from the Israeli embassy gave a South West Midlands wedding Regional Get-together Tue 5 July in resume of the current situation in Israel. It As representatives of our group and as Cambridge. Members in Cambridgeshire, personal friends, Allan and I attended the was a delight to hear such an articulate East Anglia, Bedfordshire, Herts etc should speaker spelling out how Israel is wedding of Wendy and Richard Neubauer at have received invitations. Others who wish overcoming its many problems. Her words Birmingham's Progressive Synagogue. to come along, please call Head Office. left us with an overall feeling of optimism Wendy has recently converted to Judaism

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Paul Balint AJR Day Centre OUTING TO BETH SHALOM 15 Cleve Road, London, NWe HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL CENTRE LAXTON, NOTTINGHAMSHIRE Tel: 020 7328 0208 Sunday 12 June 2005 AJR LUNCHEON CLUB £21.50 per person including coach fare, Wednesday 15 JUNE 2005 Prospective members at first meeting of entrance and vegetarian buffet lunch Bristol-Bath group Michael Smith (£9 for those using own transport) 'Frank Foley" DIARY DATES Coach will leave AJR offices in Merrion 11.45 am for 12.15 pm 12 June Beth Shalom trip Avenue, Stanmore at 8.45 am Early reservations please! 19 June AGM (at Cleve Road, Lunch now only £5 London) (plenty of parking available in car park) Please telephone Susie on 020 7328 0208 26 June-3 July Eastbourne holiday Booking is essential 29 June Scotland and Newcastle Please call Joan Altman on Northern Get-together, |XT_ A IQ Kindertransport Edinburgh 020 8385 3085 Ix I ~r\J t\ special interest group 5 July Southern Groups Get- MONTHLY MEETINGS AT CLEVE ROAD together, Cambridge Monday 6 JUNE 2005 10-17 July Northern Groups BBC Wales 11.45 am for 12.15pm holiday, St Annes would like to get in touch with any 13 July Day out, St Annes Michael Bennett 16 August Northern Groups Get- Kindertransport survivors who may 'Life in the Jewish East End together, Manchester have stayed at Gwrych Castle in Seen through the Eyes of the Son of 18 September Annual Tea, Watford North Wales during the war. If you Boris the Photographer' 23-30 October Bournemouth holiday are one of the 200 or so former Reservations required 9 November Kristallnacht residents of the Castle and are Please telephone 020 7328 0208 Please make a note in your diary - this year's willing to speak about your annual tea will be held at the Hilton Hotel in Monday - Thursday Watford on Sunday 18 September. Further experiences, please contact: 9.30 am - 3.30 pm, information and ticket application forms will Guto Thomas, Room 1060, Sunday 2 pm - 5.30 pm appear in future ssues of the A/R Jot/ma/. Broadcasting House, Llandaff, For further information about any of June Afternoon Entertainment the above events, please call us on Cardiff, CF5 2YQ or telephone Wed 1 Lev Lewis 0208385 3070. 02920 323857 Thur 2 Sheila Games Sun 5 CLOSED Mon 6 KT LUNCH - Kards & Games AJR GROUP CONTACTS Klub Norfolk (Norwich) Brighton & Hove (Sussex Region) Myrna Glass 020 8385 3077 Tue 7 CLOSED Fausta Shelton 01273 734 648 North London Wed 8 Jenny Kossew Cambridge Jenny Zundel 020 8882 4033 Lisel Eisner 01223 356721 Thur 9 Yakov Paul Oxford Sun 12 CLOSED Dundee Myrna Glass 020 8385 3077 Susanne Green 0151 291 5734 Pinner (HA Postal District) Mon 13 CLOSED East Midlands (Nottingham) Vera Gellman 020 8866 4833 Tue 14 CLOSED Bob Norton 01159 212 494 Sheffield Wed 15 LUNCHEON CLUB Edinburgh Steve Mendelssohn 0114 2630666 Frangoise Robertson 0131 337 3406 Thur 16 Joe Kay South London Essex (Westcliff) Lore Robinson 020 8670 7926 Sun 19 AGM Larry Lisner 01702 300812 South West Midlands (Worcester area) Mon 20 Kards & Games Klub Glasgow Ruth Jackson 01386 552264 Claire Singerman 0141 649 4620 Tue 21 CLOSED Surrey Harrogate Edm^e Barta 01372 727 412 Wed 22 Jack Davidoff Inge Little 01423 886254 Weald of Kent Thur 23 Ann Kenton-Barker HGS Max and Jane Dickson Sun 26 CLOSED Gerda Torrence 020 8883 9425 01892 541026 Hull Wessex (Bournemouth) Mon 27 Kards & Games Klub Bob Rosner 0148 2649156 Mark Goldfinger 01202 552 434 Tue 28 CLOSED llford West Midlands (Birmingham) Wed 29 Michael Heaton & Meta Roseneil 020 8505 0063 Ernest Aris 0121 353 1437 Lyn Radnedge Leeds HSFA Myrna Glass, AJR South and Midlands Trude Silman 0113 2251628 Groups Co-ordinator Thur 30 Lynda Styan Liverpool 020 8385 3077 Susanne Green 0151 291 5734 Susanne Green, AJR Northern Groups Manchester Co-ordinator •DROP IN' ADVICE SERVICE Werner Lachs 0161 773 4091 0151 291 5734 Members requiring benefit advice please Newcastle KT-AJR (Kindertransport) telephone Linda Kasmir on 020 8385 3070 Walter Knoblauch 0191 2855339 Andrea Goodmaker 020 8385 3070 to make an appointment at AJR, Jubilee House, Merrion Avenue, Editorials and articles published, and opinions expressed, in AJR Journal are not necessarily Stanmore, Middx HAT 4RL those of the Association of Jewish Refugees and should not be regarded as such.

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FAMILY ANNOUNCEMENTS DIARY DATE-AJR TEA LEO BAECK HOUSING ASSOCIATION Golden Wedding CLARA NEHAB HOUSE Congratulations to the Treitels of Dunstan Sunday 18 September 2005 at 3.00 pm 13-19 LEESIOE CRESCENT, NWl 1 Road fromthei r children and grandchildren. at the Hilton Hotel, Watford, Herts is holding its ANNUAL GARDEN PARTY on Deaths 'REISE UM DIE ERDE IN 80 MINUTEN' Sunday 26 June 2005 at 2.30 - 5.00 pm (Journey Round the Earth in 80 Minutes) Brainin. Norbert, bom in Vienna, died in Everyone welcome London 10 April 2005 aged 82. Deeply mourned Waltzes, foxtrots and tangos from the by his wife Katinka, daughter, son-in-law, revue-operetta by Robert Stolz grandcfaikhen, brother; sister and family, as well HOLIDAY FOR NORTHERN MEMBERS as by coundess friends and admirers. A great Performed by Sun 10 July 2005 - Sun 17 July 2005 and internationally loved musician. Glenys Groves (Soprano), AT THE FERNLEA HOTEL Dxix-Hennan. Inge, caring wife of the late Rodney Gibson (Baritone) and 11/17 South Promenade, St Annes Gangolf Herman and Henry Dux, who passed David Syrus (Piano) The cost, including DINNER, BED AND away peacefully in Toronto, Canada on 5 April. Further information and ticket application forms BREAKFAST, is £395 per person. She will be sadly missed by her son, Dr Peter will appear in future issues of the AJR Journal Please contact Ruth Finestone on Dux, Linda, his wife, and her beloved 020 8385 3070 grandchildren Bradley and Mandy in Arizona, as well as by her additional family Kitty and Hans Schafer and Sue Mark, Steven and Debra Jewisfi Care & tfie Otto ACACIA LODGE Walsh in Torcmto. Mrs Pringsheim, S.R.N. MATRON Scfiiff Housing Association For Elderly, Retired and Convalescent Smith. Elsbeth, bom in Berlin 12.2.01, died meet the personal and nursing care needs (Ucensed tiy Borough of Bamet) London 25.3.05 aged 104. of the Jewish Refugee Community. • Single and Double Rooms. • Ensuite facilities, CH in all rooms. Classified Balint House, Leo Baeck House & Osnxxid House • Gardens, TV and reading rooms. Typist required for occasional work: audio- are situated in The Bishops Avenue, where • Nurse on duty 24 hours. residents live in spacious and comfortable dictation and touch-typing, Gemian and • Long and short term and respite, surroundings, looked after in a warm and caring including trial period if required. English. Please telephone 020 74350231 environment. Residents can enjoy a variety of activities and outings, as well as take part in Between £400 and £500 per week traditional synagogue sendees and the celebration 020 8445 1244/020 8446 2820 office hours of Jewish festivals. 020 8455 1335 other times AJR DAY OUT 37-39 Tonington Park, North Finchley, Short term respite care also available. Join us for a trip to Westcliff & London N12 STB For more information call Jewish Care Direct Southend Day Centre on 020 8922 2222 or email us at Wednesday 27 July 2005 jewtshcaredirectOicare.org FillsLtCare Coach leaving Cleve Road at 10.00 am OSHA Charity Registration Number 210396 Jewish Care Charity Registration Number 802559 North London's Premier Care Agency. £18 per person to include transport We specialise in professionalHome-Care. lunch, tea and entertainment If you or a loved one need a reliable, Please contact Carol Rossen 020 8385 3085 compassionate and affordable service, call or Joan Altman 020 8385 3072 us on Freephone 0800 028 4645 or e-mail {^jCrtou^ Home Care us at [email protected] Live-In and hourly rates. Care through quality and Leo Baeck Housing Association Ltd professionalism Clara Nehab House Celebrating our 25th Anniversary Wiener Library Third Generation Project Residential Care Home 25 years of experience in providing Project Co-ordinator sought to develop a All single rooms with en suite bath/shower Holocaust project pilot scheme, aimed Short stays/Respite and 24 hour the highest standards of care in the specifically at the Third Generation for up Permanent Care. Large attractive gardens, comfort of your own home to four days a month, vi^ith excellent Ground Floor Lounge and Dining rooms, communication skills, an in-depth Lift access to all floors. Easy access to knowledge of the subject, lateral-thinking local shops and public transport skills and the ability to work both Enqulrias and further Information please contact: supervised and independently. The Manager, Clara Nehab House 13-19 Leeslde Crescent, London NWII ODA For a detailed job description see our Phone: 020 8455 2286 website on www.wienerlibrary.co.uk. Please send a covering letter and up-to- date CV by email, with the names and addresses of two refereees by 10 June 2s COMPANY 1 hour to 24 hours care Registered through the National Care Standard Commission 2005. 2s Company specialises in Interviews on 16 June 2005 at the Wiener companionship, whether for yourself, Library. Please write to Katherine Klinger your family or friends. We can be Call our 24 hour tel 020 7794 9323 [email protected] there at any time and any place to accompany you on any shopping trips, journeys, holidays, walks or even a cuppa. Living in or living out. SWITCH ON ELECTRICS ALTERATIONS Why not call us for an informal chat Rewires and all household OF ANY KIND TO LADIES' FASHIONS on 020 7372 3344 electrical work I also design and make children's clothes ALL STAFF SCREENED PHONE PAUL: 020 8200 3518 West Hampstead area 020 7328 6571 AND VETTED Mobile: 0795 614 8566

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engagement at the Wigmore Hall. became art director of a TV company and Obituaries Norbert's lack of guile occasionally designed sets for Face the Nation and The Jimmy Dean Show. In the early 1960s he Norbert Brainin landed him in difficulties; indeed, it caused his first application for British set up a TV sets graphic design business, Whimsical leader of the naturalisation to be turned down, despite contributing inter alia to the Profiles of its having been sponsored by Lord Poverty exhibit at the Smithsonian Harewood. National Museum of American History. Our family grew accustomed to the boy Later he designed logos for US we had always called Bertschi being known government programmes. He was by others as Norbert, and we too called him president of the Washington Art Directors Club and was active in promoting that. But to us he would always be the community integration. Bertschi who was an essential part of our family and of whom we had been so very Retiring in 1984, Peter Masters spent the proud. next 15 years writing his book about his Mary Brainin-Huttrer childhood and war years. £r/c Mark Peter Masters Commando, author, art director, designer Wendi Wilson Peter Masters has died at the age of 83. He Of a sweet and gentle disposition, she told the story of his early life in Striking found her vocation in the AJR's Social Work Back: A Jewish Commando's War Against team the Nazis. He was born in Vienna as Peter Norbert Brainin, an internationally All at MR keenly feel the loss of Wendi Arany, his childhood ending with the loved musician Wilson, who has died after a long illness at Anschluss. In August 1938 most of the the age of 57. A member of the Social My dearly loved cousin Norbert Brainin has family escaped to England. Work team, Wendi had worked for the AJR ;fiB died aged 82. Many obituaries have been In June 1940 he was interned on the Isle since 1984. She began work in the published about him: 1 can only offer of Man. Subsequently he enlisted in the Membership Department, moved to the affectionate snapshots. British army and, after serving in the Editorial Department but soon joined the I remember being taken to the Austrian Pioneer Corps, volunteered for an elite Social Work team, where she felt she had Centre, when Norbert played sonatas. Commando troop comprising immigrants found her true vocation. She quickly After deafening applause from the refugee from countries overrun by Nazi forces. All became a valued member of the team. audience, the evenings were rounded off spoke fluent German and most were Wendi helped hundreds of members with coffee, slices of cake, and much telling Jewish. On D-Day his unit was part of the during her years at the MR. She worked of jokes, one of my cousin's other talents. first wave attacking the Normandy coast. quietly and efficiently. Her sweet and •^-s One morning Norbert was taken away as Carrying a folding bicycle on his back, he gentle disposition and caring manner led an enemy alien. Internment proved a was the second soldier to jump off hisboat her to form strong and warm relationships blessing, as it was there that he met two of and wade ashore. with many of the members whom she the members of the future Amadeus After the war, Peter Masters received a assisted. Quartet - affectionately known in their bachelor's degree in art and design from Wendi, who was born in London, took youth as the Wolf Gang, an allusion to their London's Central School of Art and Design. great pleasure in her home and garden and predilection for pretty girls. He was among the first British students to possessed an innate artistic talent. She is He was almost endearingly absent- win a Fulbright Scholarship, studying at the survived by two children, Briony and minded. Once, sitting in the cinema, he Parsons School of Design in New York and Rupert. She was much loved by a wide became aware of the violin case at his feet, at Yale University. circle of friends as well as by her family and remembering just in time that he had an Moving to Washington in 1949, he colleagues and will be sorely missed.

Central Office for forced labour compensation and eligible and $52 billion. heirs had to have registered their claims by Although the report does not include Holocaust Claims the end of last year A second and larger reparations for the suffering of survivors, or Michael Newman tranche of payments will be made later this for the murder of 6 million Jews, it is argued month. that no more than 20 per cent of the looted Jewish assets - both private and communal - Slave labour heir payments Shoah damage valued were restored to their owners after the The first tranche of compensation payments In an unprecedented report published Holocaust. to heirs of former slave and forced labourers earlier this year, the Israeli government were made at the end of May by the Claims estimates the material damage caused to Further help Conference on behalf of the German the Jewish people during the Holocaust at Written enquiries should be sent to Central Foundation: Remembrance, Responsibility between $230 and $320 billion Office for Holocaust Claims (UK), Jubilee and Future. (approximately £170 billion). House, Merrion Avenue, Stanmore, Middx Whereas each living former labourer The report estimates the value of HA7 4RL, by fax to 020 8385 3075, or by received €7,500, eligible heirs will be plundered Jewish property at $125 billion email to [email protected] Assistance entitled to around €6,500 (approximately (in today's money) and calculates the loss can be provided strictly by appointment at £4,000). of income at between $104 and $155 the Holocaust Survivors Centre in Hendon, Please note that it is no longer possible to billion. The unpaid wages of forced north London. For an appointment, please apply to the German Foundation for slave or labourers are reckoned to be between $11 ring 020 8385 3074.

15 MR JOURN/VL JUNE 2005 AJR JOURNAL JUNE 2005

(ConL from page 11) family and became Jerusalem 20 years earlier! a friend of Marcus Sieff, Israel's son. Intent as ever on building bridges Newsround He subsequently married Jane, the with former antagonists of the Jews, daughter of Israel Sieffs younger Lord Weidenfeld initiated a discussion German officer honoured by Yad brother Edward, and joined the 'clan'. group, supported by Chancellor Vashem 'I never saw myself as a part of the Helmut Kohl, pursuing German- Major Karl Plagge has been posthumously British publishing establishment', he Jewish dialogue on which senior honoured by Yad Vashem at a ceremony in says. 'Some regarded me as an German govemment ministers have Jerusalem. Major Plagge arranged to take outsider My own preoccupations were 1,000 Jews from the Vilnius ghetto to the met, in their private capacities, with relative shelter of a nearby forced labour a restless searching for authors, books leading Jewish intellectuals. He also camp a week before the ghetto was and wider contacts.' takes considerable pride in having destroyed in July 1943. Once in the After the establishment of the State initiated an Institute of European camp, he did everything in his power of Israel the influential Flora Solomon Studies, centred on Oxford University to save lives. recommended to Weizmann and with Sir Claus Moser and Professor Americans trail Europe in knowledge of Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett that Peter Pulzer among those who joined Holocaust George be considered as a possible him on its board. He first participated Europeans know more about the aide. And so, with his publishing in seminars at the Pope's summer Holocaust than Americans, according to a partner's generous agreement for residence at Castel Gandolfo in 1989 - new study. Just 44 per cent of US this and subsequent meetings may respondents in an American Jewish leave of absence, in December 1949 Committee survey identified Auschwitz, he began a year as chef de cabinet, have helped to resolve the feud around Dachau and Treblinka as concentration or heading the President's office, the Carmelite Convent within death camps. By contrast, 91 per cent of entrusted with liaising between the Auschwitz - and in 1993 the Vatican Swedish, 88 per cent of Austrian, 79 per President and the govemment, writing entered into diplomatic relations with cent of Polish, 78 per cent of French, 77 per speeches and briefing Weizmann on Israel, part of the thaw in relations cent of German and 53 per cent of British respondents labelled the camps correctly. Israel's foreign relations. Following the between Christians and Jews. partition of Palestine in November Active Zionism has been central to 'Graves of honour' for Austrian Jews Prominent Austrian Jews buried in 1947 George led the worldwide his life and he sees himself 'Operation Jerusalem' campaign, which Vienna's Central Cemetery are to be communicating Israel's enormous granted 'graves of honour' following a helped secure Jerusalem for IsraeU achievements, as well as explaining its review of the criteria on which the honour hegemony. problems. He has published the was decided under the Nazi regime. Back in London, he devoted himself memoirs of David Ben-Gurion, Golda According to a report in the Jewish to the development of Weidenfeld & Meir, Yigal Allon, Abba Eban, Moshe Chronicle, the review calls for the graves of 37 Jewish figures, including the author Nicolson and in the 1960s-70s their list Dayan, Shimon Peres, Teddy Kollek, Arthur Schnitzler and the composer reflected his effort to convey the Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin. The Gustav Pick, to be given the designation. reality of the democratised Federal election in 1965 of Teddy Kollek, a Republic of Germany and to reflect fellow Vieimese and close friend, as Self-portrait banned by Nazis sold at Germany's increasing importance to mayor of Jerusalem, held great Sotherby's significance for George, especially A painting smuggled into Germany by Israel. Richard Grossman asked Rudolf Freiherr von Simolin, an art George Weidenfeld to organise when Kollek invited him to join his collector, has been sold at Sotherby's for meetings for Harold Wilson with Jerusalem Foundation, whose scope almost £9 million. 'Self-Portrait with visitors firom abroad after Wilson widened after the reunification of the Crystal Ball' was painted by Max Beckmann became prime minister in 1964, and city in the wake ofthe Six-Day War. months before he fled from Germany after invited him to head a committee the Nazis condemned his work as 'I regard the establishment of the 'degenerate'. The painting hung in Mr von encouraging Britain's entry into the Jewish State as one of the great Simolin's home in Berlin and was passed EEC. Weidenfeld's involvement with miracles of the twentieth centiuy', down to his descendents after his death. the European information group led to George Weidenfeld emphasises. A his becoming part of Wilson's inner total of 1,200 days elapsed between the Neo-Nazi leader jailed over Munich circle, 'entrusted with all manner of bomb plot liberation of Auschwitz and the day on One of the most dangerous neo-Nazi assignments particularly to do with which Yigal Allon reached the Suez leaders in Germany has been jailed for Middle Eastern and Anglo-American Canal in Israel's War of Independence: seven years. Martin Wiese, 29, was found relations'. He was granted a peerage in 'The passage from total humiliation guilty of leading Kameradschaft Siid, a Wilson's retirement honours list (he and near-extinction to the triumphant focal point for neo-Nazi activity in Bavaria. had been knighted seven years re-assertion of strength and patriotism Wiese was the ringleader of a plan to earlier), attending the investiture in a represents the vindication of a dream bomb a ceremony in Munich at which the morning coat made for him in foundation stone of a Jewish cultural which I am proud to have witnessed.' centrewas laid in 2003.

Published by the Association of Jewish Refugees in Great Britain, Jubilee House, Merrion Avenue, Stanmore, Middx HA7 4RL Telephone 020 8385 3070 Fax 020 8385 3080 e-mail [email protected] Website www.ajr.org.uk

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