Wilfrid Israel and the AJR

VOLUAJRME JOURNAL0 NO.0 OCTOBER 200 Wilfrid Israel and the AJR n June 1943, a circular from the AJR, found a friend who had places on his then barely two years old, informed private plane for Baeck and Israel and Imembers of the death of one of the begged them to leave for safety: ‘Wilfrid Association’s closest friends, who had said quietly: “I will go when Dr Baeck since 1933 worked devotedly for the Jews goes.” Dr Baeck looked at him and of Germany: ‘We have suffered a great loss smiled, and said: “I will go when I am when the clipper [airliner] on which our the last Jew alive in Germany”.’ Bruce friend Wilfrid Israel was returning from recorded admiringly: ‘The world is a Lisbon was shot down over the Atlantic.’ better place for having given birth to Even amidst the daily toll of lives taken by two such gallant men. I am proud and the war, Israel’s courage and selflessness honoured to have worked for a brief gave his death a special resonance for the space at their sides.’ Jewish refugees: ‘Wilfrid Israel died on a On 9 November 1938, the department mission connected with the rescue of Jews store N. Israel was attacked and wrecked from the Continent of Europe, a mission by Nazi thugs. According to an account which he had undertaken unhesitatingly in AJR Information of November 1958 by and fearless of personal danger and Wilfrid Israel Werner M. Behr, Wilfrid ensured that sacrifice. His memory will be kept alive the store’s Jewish employees were able amongst us.’ Youth Aliyah, he was instrumental in the to leave unharmed, then ‘went around Wilfrid (Wilfried) Israel was born on immigration of an estimated 10,000 chil- and calmed the remaining employees’. 11 July 1899 into a Berlin Jewish family dren before the outbreak of war. His next concern was those Jewish that owned the famous department store Israel took an active role in the Reichs- employees and their relatives who had N. Israel. Berthold Israel, his father, had vertretung der deutschen Juden, the body been arrested individually and sent to married Amy Solomon, granddaughter set up to represent German Jewry after Sachsenhausen concentration camp. of Nathan Marcus Adler, Chief Rabbi of the Nazi takeover of power. In particular, Fearless in face of the Nazis, Israel used Britain, and Wilfrid was born in London. he played a leading part in the Hilfsverein his connections to obtain their release. He grew up in Germany, but remained der Juden in Deutschland, which, working The Nazi authorities were willing to deeply conscious of his dual British and under the Reichsvertretung, was responsi- free Jewish prisoners who were ready German-Jewish heritages. He retained ble for assisting the emigration of German to emigrate immediately. Discovering something of the fastidiousness and Jews to countries other than Palestine. that the camp commandant was eager to aloofness that characterised both the Having dual British and German nation- take cash in return for the release of such British and the German-Jewish upper- ality gave him a measure of security, and men, Israel saw to it that the requisite middle classes, as can be seen from his he was almost unique in the contacts he sums reached the Nazi, who also did his appearance in Christopher Isherwood’s enjoyed with influential figures in both Christmas shopping at the department novel Goodbye to Berlin (from which Britain and Germany working for the store (for free). Interestingly, a list of the film Cabaret derives) as the fictional rescue of Jews. In this capacity, his serv- Jewish employees at N. Israel includes character Bernhard Landauer. ices to German Jewry were invaluable. the name ‘Behr, Werner’. Israel was also an energetic philan- His courage emerges vividly from In May 1939, Israel left for Britain, thropist, supporting humanitarian causes an account by the British aristocrat Sir where he continued to act as a contact including the Jüdische Waisenhilfe Michael Bruce, who met Israel and Rabbi between the British authorities, the relief (Jewish Orphans’ Relief), which was in- Dr Leo Baeck when he went to Germany organisations set up by Anglo-Jewry and volved with the children’s village of Ben on a secret mission in November 1938 the Jewish refugees. In 1940 he assisted Shemen in Palestine. After 1933, this led at the request of Anglo-Jewish leaders, refugees who had been interned. Then, to his efforts to secure the transfer of to report on the regime’s anti-Jewish in March 1943, he flew to Lisbon on Jewish children to Palestine; working with measures. In his autobiography, Tramp a mission for the Jewish Agency for Lola Hahn-Warburg and others under the Royal (1955), Sir Michael recounts how, Palestine, to arrange the departure to aegis of the Berlin-based Children and as the Crystal Night pogrom raged, he continued overleaf AJR JOURNAL OCTOBER 200 WILFRID ISRAEL cont. from page 1 Palestine of Jewish refugees who had 1944, the Portuguese liner Nyassa arrived Israel (and the actor Leslie Howard). In reached Spain and Portugal but were in Haifa with some 750 Jewish refugees his memory, a Wilfrid Israel Hostel was trapped there; behind this lay the hope from Portugal aboard, the largest group of built in the village of Ben Shemen; the that if these Jews left, it might be possible refugees to reach Palestine directly from German-Jewish settlement of Kibbutz for Jews from Nazi-occupied territories to Europe in wartime. But on 1 June 1943, Hazorea was bequeathed his collection be admitted in their place. BOAC Flight 777 from Lisbon to London of Asian art, now housed in the Wilfrid The first part of Israel’s mission was was shot down by the Luftwaffe with the Israel Museum. crowned with success: on 1 February loss of all those aboard, including Wilfrid Anthony Grenville Lost cities of the Mediterranean BC Radio 4 recently broadcast as became the Turkish city of Izmir after Egypt in 1956. its Saturday Play The White Cham the triumph of Turkish nationalism in the The great Alexandrian poet C. P. Beleon, Christopher Hampton’s wake of the First World War. Salonika, Cavafy, a Greek, created his mythical semi-fictional dramatisation of his child- once a city composed of Jews and Greeks visions of Ithaca and Alexandria in the hood years in Alexandria, which came to in equal numbers and ruled by Turks, be- city of his birth. Now, after the events that an abrupt end with the Suez crisis of 1956. came a monoculture when the occupying dispatched the young Hampton back to a The play is a moving account of a ten- Germans deported the Jews to the death dreary and xenophobic Britain, myths like year-old child’s affection for a wonderfully camps during the Second World War; Cavafy’s are all we have left to remind us colourful city and its engaging inhabitants, but it had started to become a Greek city of the vanished cultural multiplicity that set against the background of the final when it came under Greek rule in 1912 gilded the Mediterranean past. ebbing away of the British Empire. and was exposed to Greek nationalist Anthony Grenville The play revolves around the boy intolerance of other ethnic identities. A Christopher’s relationship with the similar process has affected such legen- ‘CHURCHILL’S GERMAN ARMY’ family servant Ibrahim, who runs the dary names as Antioch and Aleppo and, to The National Geographic Channel household with a disarming combination a large extent, Istanbul (which had been screened the documentary ‘Churchill’s German Army’ in April 2009. Appearing Constantinople for a millennium and a of loyalty and fondness for the family’s in this unique film were members of drinks cabinet. Ibrahim’s attachment to half), as well as Beirut. the AJR who fought heroically for the Hamptons transcends the politics of Copts, Kurds, Circassians – they all Britain during the Second World War. the time, which pitted the militant na- had their place in the fertile amalgam of We will be showing a screening on tionalism of Nasser’s Egypt against the the Levant. But above all the cities of the Thursday 21 October 2010 at 2.00 pm for 2.30 pm eastern Mediterranean provided a place remaining strongholds of British power at Pinner United Synagogue in the country. In the end, Britain’s ill- where Jews could mix freely with other 5 Cecil Park, Pinner judged Suez adventure, aimed at toppling groups and make their own particular To reserve your place, please call Nasser and reclaiming the Suez Canal, contribution to the multicultural richness Susan Harrod on 020 8385 3070 £2 charge for refreshments succeeds only in destroying the last bases of the whole. The Alexandria of Lawrence of British influence in Egypt, and at the Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet (1957-60) or same time severs the links between the E. M. Forster’s history and guide to the AJR THEATRE OUTING Hampton family and the faithful Ibrahim. city (1922) would be unimaginable without WAR HORSE Christopher is sent back to school in the communities of Jews and Armenians, Thursday 25 November 2010 England and his parents are expelled whose presence gave the city its own 2.30-5.15 pm from Egypt. inimitable charisma – now displaced at New London Theatre The principal lost world is not that in the name of a charmless Egyptian Drury Lane, London of British imperial grandeur, for which nationalism. London was fortunate in War Horse is a thrilling and spectacular Hampton has scant regard, but an attracting some of Alexandria’s Jewish production based on the celebrated novel by Michael Morpurgo and has Alexandria that was a melting-pot of community after their expulsion from been at the National for an extensive Mediterranean cultures, languages and run before moving to Drury Lane.

Load more